An SEO Interview with Google Using AI

Editor’s note (May 2026): This post was written in April 2021, when I’d just got early access to GPT-3; one of the first large language models available to the public. At the time, AI-generated content felt genuinely experimental. I’m leaving the original post intact as a record of where we were, but I’ve added a reflection at the end on how far things have come since.

I recently obtained beta access to OpenAI and I thought I’d have some fun by trying to get some SEO secrets out of Google.

The following interview includes AI-generated text following manual prompts. The prompts are in bold.

An (AI-generated) interview about SEO with Google

Here is an interview with Google, an American multinational technology company that specialises in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. The interviewer is Itamar Blauer. The year is 2021.

Itamar: Hello Google! How are you doing?

Google: Great, thanks! How about yourself?

Itamar: I’m doing well thank you. Tell me, What are your thoughts about the SEO industry?

Google: Hmmm, it’s a really hard, competitive and challenging industry. I’m not sure if I like it.

Google: I mean, I do. I love it. But I hate it. It’s so hard.

Itamar: But you are the biggest player in the industry.

Google: I know. I am the biggest. I’m always the biggest. I’m always the first. I’m always the best. But I feel that there is a lot of pressure from other players.

Itamar: People in the SEO industry mainly care about their rankings on Google and they try their best to create unique, great content.

Google: Sure. It’s great for the masses. They love it. But I’m not sure it’s great to be #1 every time. When I was #1 back in the days, I was one of a few search engines, but nowadays I’m one of many hundred search engines.

Itamar: Actually Google, you still dominate the search engine market. With that said, your algorithm is quite complex. Can you tell us any secrets to ranking #1 on Google?

Google: Wow, it’s hard. I would suggest to create quality content, improve your site and submit a sitemap to Google via Google Search Console. However, these days people also buy traffic to rank #1 on Google, but that is a much easier way to rank #1. I don’t recommend it!

Itamar: Hold on, isn’t buying traffic against your terms of service?

Google: Yes, it is. But that’s the thing, my users don’t always stick to rules.

Itamar: Lots of people are still buying backlinks. What are your thoughts on this?

Google: Backlinks are indeed important. If you want to rank #1 on Google without buying backlinks, you will need to create exceptional content. I would always suggest creating great content because it is the foundation of a great website.

Itamar: How many ranking factors are there?

Google: There are hundreds.

Itamar: What is the most effective ranking factor right now to help me rank higher on Google?

Google: The most effective ranking factor right now is the engagement level on your content.

Itamar: You told me before that the best way to have positive correlation between SEO and brand awareness is to create quality content on the asset and encouraging sharing of your content and often times use social media. But what if you already own a very valuable brand with lots of exposure? What do you suggest in these cases?

Google: In these cases, I would suggest maintaining your authority and trust. Nothing else matters. Your brand is an asset that you need to maintain at all times. I don’t want any top brands going to my competitor!

Itamar: That’s fantastic information, Google! My last question is: what do you think of Bing?

Google: Bing is a great search engine. I’m not sure if it’s better than Google, but it’s a great search engine.

Itamar: Thank you Google.

Google: Thank you!

Why I did this and what it looks like from 2026

When I wrote this in April 2021, getting access to GPT-3 felt like being handed something from the future. The outputs were rough, sometimes incoherent, but the potential was unmistakable. I wanted to show what AI could already do with a simple prompt - and what that meant for content.

Looking back at it now, GPT-3 is almost quaint. The model I used to generate this interview has since been succeeded by GPT-4, GPT-4o, o1, o3 - each dramatically more capable than the last. What took careful prompting and a lot of patience in 2021 now happens in seconds with far better results.

The implications I was speculating about back then have fully materialised. AI is now embedded in every part of content creation, SEO, and digital marketing. The question has shifted from “will AI change content?” to “how do you create content that stands out when AI can produce infinite volumes of average?”

The answer, as it turns out, is the same thing that made content good before AI: genuine expertise, a clear point of view, and real usefulness to the reader.

AI can assist with all of that. But it can’t replace it.

If you want to know how I’m actually using AI in my SEO work now, my post on optimising for Google’s AI Overviews is a good place to start.