Hello readers, It’s almost that time of the year again. I can almost hear the sound of jingle bells ringing in the distance. Here’s your list of SEO news for the week. 

• Twitter Survey: Search Engine Optimization vs. Pay-Per-Click
• The Law On Diminishing Returns For Local Reviews
• Google’s Danny Sullivan On AI-Generated Content 

7/11 – Twitter Survey: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) vs. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) 

SEO professional Lily Ray recently did a poll on Twitter asking fellow content marketers which method they are pouring money into.

The result?

The result shows that people are inclined to spend more on PPC as compared to SEO. Looking at the results, however, you should note two things. 

Firstly, Lily has more of an SEO following on Twitter, so the results might be even more lopsided if the poll was conducted by someone on the PPC side. 

Secondly, while the case may be that people are more inclined to spend on PPC, it does not mean that people prefer PPC over SEO. This is because SEO has always been the cheaper alternative as compared to its pay-to-win counterpart. 

What about you? Are you an SEO or PPC person? 

The Law On Diminishing Returns On Local Reviews 

Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins recently conducted another case study on the impact of local reviews of rankings. 

In her research, she noted that once a business gets approximately 10 local reviews, there is no point in further pushing for more reviews for the purposes of ranking. 

This is because anything more than 10 reviews plays into the Laws On Diminishing Returns. 

In her research, a business’s Google listing rank does see an improvement passing the 10 review mark. However, anything more than that, even where the reviews reach a number of 30+, does not improve Google listing rank whatsoever. 

8/11 – Google’s Danny Sullivan On AI-Generated Content

There has recently been some debate on Twitter about how Google’s October Spam update has had a large impact on AI-generated content. 

However, Danny Sullivan, who is Google’s Liaison for Search, clarified that AI-generated content only does not give negative SEO to a website. Instead, what matters is whether the content produced is helpful, reliable, and people-first in nature. 

Only content created, be it by humans or AI, for the sole purpose of ranking on search engines would be targeted by Google’s October Spam update and helpful content update.

And Google has always been clear about this. 

So the next time that you feel reluctant about trying out AI-generated content. Just remember that it is not the tool that is the problem. It is the nature of the content. 

Even if you are using AI-generated content, as long as it is helpful and authoritative, who’s to tell that it is AI-generated?

That’s It! 

What do you think about this week’s news? Do you dip your finances into SEO or PPC? Do you use incorporate AI-generated content for your website? Let me know in the comments below.

Updated: 4 February 2025