Before and after
Auto SEO backlinks and the disclosure question inside your team
Automatic mode writes the article for you. Your editors, your legal reviewer and your boss may all want to know that. This page is a policy sketch.
Disclosure is an internal habit first
The article sits on someone else's website. Not yours. Your readers will not see it as your content. Your colleagues, though, will see the line in your tracker.
Google does not ban AI-assisted writing as such. Good. Its March 2024 spam policy about scaled content abuse is about producing pages at volume mainly to manipulate search, however they are made. So the useful question is quality and relevance, not the tool.
That is why we suggest tagging each order with the content mode. It costs one cell.
Ahrefs and Semrush both show you which anchors a page already carries, so you can pick wording that is not already overused before the order is paid.
Before and after: a hypothetical team
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Tracker | URL and date only | URL, date, anchor, content mode |
| Legal question in week 5 | Nobody remembers who wrote what | Filter on 'automatic' and send the list |
| Editor's reaction | Surprise, then a long thread | Already knew, asked for a spot check |
| Time spent | Half a day | Ten minutes |
A short policy you can paste
- Every bought placement is logged with its content mode.
- Automatic placements are limited to supporting pages.
- A human opens each live URL within one working day.
- Claims, numbers and quotes are checked by a person before we point at them.
- Flagship pages use our own finished article.
Rolling the policy out in a week
- 1
Monday: add the column
One new field in the tracker, called Content mode, with three allowed values.
- 2
Tuesday: backfill
Mark last quarter's orders from the orders list. Unknown ones get 'unknown', which is honest.
- 3
Wednesday: agree the one-sentence statement
Show it to editorial and legal, and fix the wording once.
- 4
Friday: first spot check
Open five live URLs and tick the box. Repeat monthly.
Our position
Use automation for the volume, people for the voice
Automatic mode is useful for supporting pages and a poor choice for anything where your brand's voice is the product. The writer brief guide shows the cut-off.
- Log the mode
- Spot-check live URLs
- Keep the flagship in human hands
What to say to each audience
Editors want to know who checks the facts. Fair. Legal wants to know whether a claim could be wrong. Finance wants a line in the invoice.
Give each of them one sentence. Just one. "Placements in automatic mode are written by software from our target URL and keyword, and a person opens the live page within a day." That sentence is true, short and complete. Anything longer invites a meeting.
If a stakeholder dislikes it, offer the other modes. Your own prompt gives you more say over the angle, and your own finished article gives you all of it, at the price of your time. The brief guide shows the trade.
Where the risk really sits
Wrong facts
Software can state something plausible and false. A person reading the live URL is the control.
Off-topic hosts
A relevant donor matters more than the writing method. Use the niche and language filters.
Repeated anchors
The same exact-match anchor across ten placements looks engineered. Vary it, and keep to the page's real topic.
Search engines change their guidance, and the March 2024 spam policies are not the last word. Re-read Google Search Central each quarter and update your note.