On October 1, Google changed its page on helpful content. It defines main content (text and media, tools, reviews, tabs, headings), lists the four criteria raters examine about it (effort, originality, talent or skill, accuracy) and calls fabricated author profiles deception: AI-generated photos, invented names, fake credentials. Google counts this practice among the signals of a low-quality page. For a small business, the check concerns the author page and the byline: name, photo and credentials must match a real person.
Contents
On October 1, 2026, Google updated its page “Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content”, devoted to helpful content.1 The addition defines a page's main content, lists the four criteria raters examine about it and counts fabricated author profiles as deception.1 This article goes over what the page says and what it implies for how a small business signs its pages.
01Main content and the raters' four criteria
Google ties its new definition to the search quality rater guidelines: beyond E-E-A-T, they place the quality of the main content among the most critical factors for judging a page, based on how well it achieves its purpose and offers a satisfying experience.1 Search Engine Roundtable sums up the addition as two sections, the definition of main content and the list of evaluation criteria.2
What main content covers
Google defines main content as any part of the page that directly helps the page achieve its purpose. Depending on that purpose, it can include five types of elements.1
| Element | Examples cited by Google |
|---|---|
| Main text and media | text, articles, images, audio or video files |
| Interactive features | calculators, online tools, games, search |
| User contributions | forum discussions, customer reviews, comments, uploaded media, when they fulfill the page's purpose |
| Tabbed or expandable sections | product specifications, safety instructions, reviews |
| Page titles and headings | the visible title and the headings that summarize the topic and help decide whether to visit the page |
The list therefore goes beyond running text: an online simulator or the content of a specifications tab count just as much as an article. Titles and headings are included too, which puts checking heading structure and meta tags among the quality checks of an audit.
The four criteria
Raters are trained to examine four attributes of main content.1 The table summarizes Google's definition.
| Criterion | What Google looks for |
|---|---|
| Effort | the human work invested in the content or in the systems that produce it |
| Originality | unique information or perspectives that do not already exist on other sites |
| Talent or skill | the skills needed for a satisfying experience: clear writing, polished video, tools that work |
| Accuracy | accurate facts for an informational page, and a high degree of accuracy, consistent with expert consensus, for topics that can affect people's lives or well-being (YMYL) |
For effort, Google gives examples. Writing an original analysis, translating a poem by hand or building a custom interactive map for a game represent high effort. Automatically generating pages from feeds, or producing large amounts of text with generative AI without supervision or manual curation, represents low to no effort.1
The page adds that citing or crediting other sources does not replace original effort.1 It also specifies that not all content requires specialized expertise: its example is someone sharing their experience of a new way to clear snow from their driveway.1
The scope of these criteria
These four criteria are the raters' criteria. The page reminds readers that raters have no influence on how pages rank and that their data is not used directly in the algorithms: Google uses it the way a restaurant uses customer comment cards, to find out whether its systems are working well.1 Reading the guidelines can, however, help you assess yourself and get closer to the signals that automated systems use to rank content.1
02Fake author profiles, now counted as deception
The new paragraph sits in the page's “Who (created the content)” section, right after the advice to add accurate authorship information, such as bylines, where readers expect it.13
What Google writes
Google asks site owners to avoid misleading author information. Fabricating creator profiles, with AI-generated profile photos, invented names or fake credentials, to make it seem that content was written by human experts, is a form of deception.1
Any deception makes the page untrustworthy for people and for automated quality systems alike, and is a signal of a low-quality page.1
The link with the rater guidelines
According to Search Engine Journal, section 4.5.3 of the rater guidelines already contained similar examples: AI-generated content with invented author profiles, built from AI-generated images or misleading biographies, and profiles that falsely claim qualifications, for example by posing as a health professional.3 Raters must give the lowest rating, Lowest, to pages that use deception.3
The Search Central page carries these ideas over into documentation written for site owners.3
Bylines and ranking
Google otherwise encourages accurate bylines: according to the page, clearly showing who created the content probably fits with the logic of E-E-A-T.1 Search Engine Journal points out that Google's Search Liaison account said in January 2024 that bylines do not make a page rank better.3
03Signing a small business's pages honestly
Google's page sets out three series of questions, about the who, the how and the why of content. They serve as the basis for a byline check that a small business can run page by page.1
Who: a real person the reader can find
Google asks whether the author is evident to visitors, whether pages carry a byline where one is expected, and whether that byline leads to information about the author: their background and the topics they write about.1 The table turns these questions into checks on the author page, with Google's position alongside.
| Element | Check | Google's position |
|---|---|---|
| Name | that of a person who actually contributed to the content | invented names are cited as deception |
| Photo | a photo of that person | AI-generated profile photos are cited as deception |
| Titles and credentials | those the person holds and can prove | fake credentials are cited as deception |
| Background and topics | a presentation of the areas actually covered, reachable from the byline | Google asks whether the byline leads to information about the author |
If the page is marked up in JSON-LD, the byline is also declared in the Article or BlogPosting schema, with the author's name and the address of a page that identifies them, for example an “about” page or a biography.4 Google recommends including in the markup every author shown on the page4 and asks you not to mark up content that is invisible to readers5: the marked-up byline must therefore be the one readers see on screen.
How: saying when AI produced or helped with the content
The page's “How” section covers automated, AI-generated or AI-assisted content, and says that sharing details about the processes helps readers understand the useful role automation plays.1 When automation is used to produce most of a piece of content, Google asks three questions: is its use evident to visitors, through a disclosure or otherwise, is it explained how it was used, and why it seemed useful.1
Google specifies that these disclosures are useful when a reader might wonder how the content was created, and invites site owners to add them where they could reasonably be expected.1 The review that comes before signing a text produced with AI is detailed in the five-pass review method for AI-produced content.
Why: the question Google considers most important
Google writes that “why” is perhaps the most important question: content should be created first and foremost to help people.1 Content made mainly to attract visits from search engines is not aligned with what its systems seek to reward, and using automation, AI included, with the primary purpose of manipulating rankings violates its spam policies.1