ChatGPT Is massively overhyped and tanking your SEO readability score. Calm down.

What does Google, AltaVista, DuckDuck Go, Yandex, and Yahoo roughly index according to Yoast and SemRush.

• A single keyword
• The 150 character meta description
• Roughly the first four sentences under 22 characters or 150 words.
• H1, H2, H3 tags
• Any structured list containing natural phrasing (containing no stuffed keywords)
• Page content containing at least (1) internal and (1) external link
• Any image alt tags and image descriptions

That’s it.

Any copy on the page more than what is listed above is for your own reading, personal preference in writing style, or a futile exercise in over thinking a specific subject matter. Mainly because “overwriting tanks readability scores”, and ChatGPT, is a pro at overwriting at a college reading level.

Forgot about readability eh?

I get it, tools like ChatGPT and OpenAI are easy. You don’t have to think and it vomits something nice onto a page and you can copy and paste it into your blog right? Wrong. The problem is that all these AI tools over-write massively ABOVE the maximum readability index score and tank your SEO.

Guess what?

Anything written over a six grade US education level or can’t be quickly skimmed in 10 seconds or less lowers your page readability ranking results. Taking you from the top of page one search results, down the results page and possibly to the dreaded page two or beyond.

While a lower readability score doesn’t directly impact website indexing, it can directly affects how Google ranks your site by impacting user engagement and bounce rates. Google prioritizes providing users with a good experience, and too much content or content that’s hard to read can lead to higher bounce rates and less time spent on your site, which can negatively affect your rankings.

Head over to Google Analytics and check your “Average engagement time” metric for your site. Go to “Reports” > “Life cycle” > “Engagement” > “Overview. If you’ve been using ChatGPT a lot and your lighthouse readability score is tanking, this is where you’re going to figure it out.

For all you AI copy and paste sheep, ChatGPT is massively overhyped – your SEO called and told me to tell you to calm down.