018 – Our Recent Experience With AI Detection Tools

00:00.00
Jeff
Hold hold on the second beat hold hold on a piece second beat. Let me just finish my chaps that get my water I’m sorry start counting down I thought I could finish. It’s easier to trim to beginning. You know what? I mean so all right? It’s all you.

00:01.80
peteeveritt
Hello. Ah.

00:16.55
peteeveritt
3 2 now I won’t do that hello and welcome to this episode of the W P Seo show I am pete one of your co-hosts and I’m joined by my good old mucker Jeff from the other side of the Atlantic. Oh sorry yeah, that’s that’s a yorkshireism yorkshire yorkshire is a part of England. All of the american listeners will know it more as yorkshire. Um, but yeah york what yorkshire it’s like worcestershire is worcestershire and Yorkshire. Yes english which comes from england.

00:38.20
Jeff
Oh that’s not how you say it? That’s how I always say it? Yeah yeah, you speak you’re speaking english.

00:53.55
Jeff
Does it though. Does it though.

00:57.99
peteeveritt
Ah, oh this isn’t where the show was meant to go anyway. Anyway.

01:03.86
Jeff
Ah, boy we really we really set. We really ah set the precedent before we got started. We said you know this might be 1 of the topics that we have some kind of differing views on and here we are. We’re already fighting.

01:12.97
peteeveritt
Absolutely I think I think we we’ve already setting the bar for light a brawl we took for for full Clarity. We kind of agreed that this topic that we’re going to talk about in this show isn’t something that we can agree to disagree on so we basically have to keep on arguing till the death. So that there is a definitive view that comes out of it.

01:34.62
Jeff
And it’s it is very important that one of us expires by this because 2 of us cannot live with these differing views.

01:42.54
peteeveritt
And let’s face it an entire ocean and an entire continent isn’t enough distance for our 2 worldviews to to ah to survive so ah.

01:53.90
Jeff
We’re we’re blowing this up so much. It is not nearly this brutal or violent or angry.

01:58.51
peteeveritt
Right? well well I’m I’m going to now introduce the topic and we’re a couple of minutes in and we’ll see what the drop off rate is on the episode when we get it into when we get it into captivate. Ah so that you know of of people coming in.

02:07.89
Jeff
Guy We’ll find out.

02:12.61
peteeveritt
Listening to the intro and getting all worked up and kind of oh this is going to be good then we say what it is and they go oh now I’m not going to listen to that off and didn’t talk about the weather I’m wearing I’m wearing thermals. It’s like minus four outside has been for the best part of a week

02:15.83
Jeff
No man and they didn’t talk about the weather today dang it with a crappy episode.

02:27.96
Jeff
Um.

02:30.57
peteeveritt
Um, yeah, absolutely I was trying not to think about it and then yeah you go bringing it up again right? Okay, so we well let’s preface this show with a little the whole concept of this show has come up from a scenario that.

02:30.93
Jeff
It’s January it’s cold. We get it move on fight fight.

02:49.96
peteeveritt
Happened in our business in seo hive or was brought to our attention by a client couple of weeks ago where ah one of our agency partners sent us some reports that their client had run on some content on their website from an ai checker and. The reports had come back and sent 3 reports one had come back with a score of 78% on this ai checker another for I believe it was 97 it was in the 90 s anyway and then the third was 100 % score on this ai checker for 3 different pages of content on this website and.

03:19.52
Jeff
Um.

03:27.48
peteeveritt
The client had sent them to us wanting to know how to respond wanting to know what we thought of the ai checkers wanting to know basically did the client have a point and what could be done to to address the issues and that then sent us on a bit of a journey of discovery I think that’s first isn’t it. Jeffrey.

03:43.44
Jeff
Um, quite a journey quite an interesting journey I Have to admit this isn’t something like I wanted to deal with that week but it was interesting. It was really like it was an eye-opening experience like I’m not mad about the situation.

03:46.23
peteeveritt
So no.

03:56.65
peteeveritt
No, no, no, we’re not not not mad about it at all and it was. It’s certainly been useful. We’ll both agree on that. Um, and for the sake of impartiality. We won’t mention the particular ai checker that was that was used Um, however.

04:00.14
Jeff
M.

04:10.30
Jeff
Yet.

04:14.19
peteeveritt
Needless to say that the reports in inverted commas that they’d sent through were so generic or so so unuseful that in order to get a true picture of what was going on. We went up and so we had to go and sign up for the damn thing ourselves and run the reports ourselves to actually get the full detail and what then. Transpired was a whole yeah load of education about what these reports meant what the tips were that were given in order to improve the scores and then our differing views about whether they were any good or not in the first place. Um, so.

04:52.13
Jeff
Um, I should also sorry I should also add we discussed with them as well. So that it wasn’t just our discovery. We we talked with the company multiple times too and in ah in a positive manner. You know I may just figure this stuff out.

04:52.75
peteeveritt
That is what we let’s go. Oh yeah.

05:02.12
peteeveritt
Um, yeah.

05:05.64
Jeff
So yeah, ah okay here here’s where Pete’s going to start turning red.

05:07.56
peteeveritt
So let let’s let’s let’s know I’m I’m gonna I’m going to take a chill pill a little bit ill be fine. Ah no a I checkers were killed in the in the production of this episode. So let’s let’s first things First. So the. The very first thing that shocked us was the scores that were given you know 78% 90 whatever percent and 100% and it took us a while to to actually understand from the check. In fact, we needed our own account to get in and get the information from the from the software itself was to understand what those scores meant. Because for example that hundred percent score it did not mean from the outset that a hundred percent of this page was written by Ai. The score was a confidence score. So what it was saying was that the. The checker was one ah hundred percent confident that Ai had been used in the production of some part of that page that could be I’m presuming. It wasn’t doing individual words but that could been a sentence. It could have been a paragraph. It could have been a a section or it could have been the whole thing. That’s not to say that the whole thing was 100% and that was very misleading from the outset and the tone of the message that had come from the end client was very much like hey this page is entirely Ai. This isn’t this isn’t on. Yeah, so there’s there’s very definite. Yeah expectation there.

06:31.70
Jeff
Yep, and I think that’s the biggest. That’s probably the biggest problem is how it’s I don’t want say advertise from marketing standpoint. But how the results are conveyed. It’s It’s very alarmist and very like. Almost feels like like they’re accusing. Yeah I felt when when we first got this. My first instinct was we need to talk to writers and find out what the heck’s going on why the heck they be doing that am there’s a lot more to the story.

06:59.51
peteeveritt
Yeah, absolutely absolutely and I think the thing is that I mean I’ve got the sales page of the website of the particular ai checker up in front of me and um it it. It says things like ah. Accurate ai checker. It did also check for plagiarism and it checked for facts. Ah the fact checker we didn’t actually pay for that for those particular scans did we because basically each page you ran you did it took however many credits it was based on your word count. So. Ah, when you submitted a yeah url it would calculate the word count and then would tell you that it was 20 credits for an ai check 20 a further 20 credits for plagiarism and further 20 credits. For fact, we only did ai and plagiarism to be fair, the plagiarism checks all came back completely clear and the as I said you you but well I’ve I’ve told you what the scores were for the ai checkers. Ah, the I I checks now I do also have a bit of an issue with this which is I don’t know how plagiarism is kind of taught around the world. Um, but. In the U K we are taught quite extensively at university about what plagiarism is and why you shouldn’t do it. Um and I struggle to see how something that is machine learnt and therefore machine generated.

08:22.32
peteeveritt
Can’t be plagiarism does that make sense like what what? what surprises me is that you get a page. It’s a 100% confident that that’s a I generate has some Ai generated content in it but yet is still a hundred percent plagiarism free.

08:26.11
Jeff
He Yeah yeah, but I mean.

08:41.73
peteeveritt
Because surely the Ai bit must be a I from somewhere so you know it’s learnt it from somewhere. It’s machine learning I know you know So how can it. It seems odd that you’d have complete opposite polar ends of the spectrum scores for. For that. That’s all I’m saying seems a bit strange to me.

08:59.91
Jeff
Yeah, and makes sense in that when you think of the concept that way but at the same time What you’re describing is exactly what a human would do they would consume the information they would process it and they would regurgitate it onto the page. So. It’s kind of that to me. It’s the same thing I wouldn’t define as plagiarism I would Say. Plagiarism is at least the way I’m concerned about it is very literally the the verbatim copying of text you know what I mean or even I guess even verbatim you know, even just taking like a sentence and being over there like for example, we’ve used ah I will say this name because we have no problem with them but copyscape.

09:22.41
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah.

09:36.21
Jeff
We’ve had that forever and it’s it’s one of those things that again when I log in there I go is this look I guess from 1994 can you guys? update your website do something modern. it’s it’s um but I don’t want to give you by credit card information but we do um because it’s I don’t know of anything better right now but you know.

09:44.91
peteeveritt
Can’t.

09:49.14
peteeveritt
Yeah, you log in and think is this secure. Yeah.

09:53.61
Jeff
Right? Yeah, okay, Chrome’s not warning me so I guess it’s all right? So funny. How like how I don’t know. Um you know what? I mean like and my mind’s blinking. But yeah in real life you know I mean if you see a pretty go. You’re like oh she’s pretty I’m I’m interested in her websites are the same way. It’s like. Oh it looks pretty I trust it like it doesn’t look good I don’t trust it. It’s so funny. We’ve gotten to that stage ah gives no gave. Maybe.

10:16.97
peteeveritt
Ah, and what we found is now Jeff gives his credit card details to pretty girls.

10:29.62
peteeveritt
Ah, anyway when what we just saying before this that we needed some kind of some kind of sound or to play if you if you went off topic. Ah.

10:30.47
Jeff
Ah, anyway, what were we saying? No um, but yeah, so.

10:40.63
Jeff
Stay on Target stay on Target we’re gonna have a sound board in in future episodes coming on here. So it’s a pete can keep me on track and you can make jokes I can do I can do that rim shot when there’s a hilarious British euphemism. Oh yes I Love it.

10:47.20
peteeveritt
So anyway.

10:53.81
peteeveritt
What you mean this one I So hope that comes out on the recording hey.

11:00.32
Jeff
And love it. I love it. I love it. So anyway, talk about copyscape you know Copyscape will will literally show you that this sentence has been used somewhere you know, um I don’t think it’ll go down to like a word or a phrase but but a sentence and the one that we’re discussing that was the same thing the though the 1 review that I really really you know spent the most time on was like 100% ai score and I’m looking through. Maybe it was 99 but you know is basically 100% and when I was reviewing it every single sentence was highlighted and you could hover over it and it was like we are confident. That ai was used to just do this or you know or in some capacity and then there was one that wasn’t and I was like okay so what’s different about this sentence and there was a grammatical error like I admit it should and a but issue it should have been god it but it was a grammatical error and I thought okay. But so that’s the only unique one all right? Well not unique, but not Ai generated so interesting and that kind of leads to what I find I think is the most interesting discovery in this whole whole process I don’t know if you know what I’m getting at. Do you want to? ah should say just put it out. There. Okay.

12:08.38
peteeveritt
Ah, you you get? you go you go you go for it.

12:11.26
Jeff
So like I said we we had to obviously have some internal discussions go hey hey budd do it’s something else supposed to be doing and of course you know everything’s positive and and we’ve we come to find out Grammarly is triggering this in like ah.

12:29.14
Jeff
Was in 100% of the cases I think it was are are really really close. Um, because yeah we had we had ah 1 of our writer team submit another article that we are 100% confident was written 100% uniquely and boom and we’re just like whoa what is going on here.

12:31.80
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah.

12:47.76
Jeff
And some of the discussions that we were having with their support was well. You know don’t use ah like you know grammar checkers and things like that. Well wait a second I mean we’reworking a word or 2 does not make content Ai generated in my opinion. It doesn’t make it unreliable. It’s it’s not malicious I don’t think there’s anything negative about that.

13:10.10
peteeveritt
Well, yeah, no, absolutely So So this is it So We we didn’t only run we did have enough credits on our on our account which I’ll hasten to Add. We have now closed. Um, but we did have enough credits to run multiple bits of content through so we took. Some content that we generated for that Client. We took some content that we generated for other clients I took some content from my agency that hadn’t even been through the Seo hive process that had been through you know a complete independent process that came back at 91% and.

13:41.58
Jeff
And I’m guessing that’s old enough to probably predate, not calling your website old but I’m guessed that I know you haven’t revamped it recently so I’m guessing it’s probably predays most of the Ai content generators and stuff. Oh okay, sorry.

13:50.60
peteeveritt
Ah, it in fairness, it. What? no it wasn’t it was an s it was a it was my one of my agency clients. It wasn’t wasn’t my ah wasn’t my agency website but you know we took took content from different sources from different writers from different processes and. We struggle to get anything that would have a score of 0 in fact, we struggle to get anything that would have a score of under 50% and that was when we started digging into this a bit more and we looked at what they termed as tips and this for me is. Really the crooks that undermined the whole validity of what we were looking at and this is where this is where Jeff and I do yeah Jeff in my opinion do does kind of differ this is where the fight begins because in my in my mind if these things aren’t. Suitable to be used in the real world if they’re too complicated and some of the tips that we’ll talk about in a second really in my mind do undermine the whole point of using these things. Why should I give you money if you’re going to tell me and in a minute you know that I should remove part of the text all I’m now doing is gamifying. My content in your system that isn’t actually going to help me in the real you know it either take the whole content or take none of it but don’t tell me to then remove introductions and lists and this that and the other because what’s the point in the score at that point. So ah, yeah, it the the process.

15:24.35
peteeveritt
That that was part of it then there was the software that could set it off so grammarly was one of them. We have been quite vocal on the podcast before we use surfer as part of ah my agency process that would trigger it and of course things like chat Gp would trigger it which is that that’s what it’s there to to find but there’s yeah.

15:40.71
Jeff
Um, yeah, and that that’s what I would expect.

15:43.59
peteeveritt
But the list of things. It’s said to remove for me just got to a point of saying well, what’s the point if you can’t give an accurate score with general tools. It even said don’t use Microsoft word. It did.

16:01.14
Jeff
Ah, because of the spell check the grammar Check I don’t know but it’s like well you this isn’t realistic.

16:02.89
peteeveritt
Ah I presume so you know if that’s if it’s so sensitive that that all of a sudden makes it not a real world application for me and therefore pointless and therefore I want my money back Anyway, I Lost threw my toys out of the pram at that point and said oh you deal with it. And you were then you were then dedicated enough to the cause to actually get involved with the chat support team from this ai checker to then go and try and get a bit further so I don’t know if you want to pick up the story from there because I literally yeah I was done I was out.

16:38.33
Jeff
Well credit where credits due that that was actually our amazing content manager Kelly that was taking the time to discuss with them I didn’t have the patience and I had the patience to like dig into it and try to find the tricks which of course probably took 10 times longer than just opening chat or emailing them discussing with them. But.

16:39.99
peteeveritt
I’ve got bad things to do.

16:57.42
Jeff
You know’s that’s that’s way I do things. Um, yeah, so so like yeah I don’t I don’t want to like I don’t differ completely from pete I share most of his same sentiments. But I think I have a little bit different of a perception and attitude towards this to This service this product whatever you want to call it. Um, the first thing I’ll say is it very affordable is only like fifteen bucks I’m not worried about the the money. Ah I I don’t I I don’t I don’t like to blowat money but it wasn’t that wasn’t going to keep me up at night.

17:22.96
peteeveritt
I am it’s just they shouldn’t have taken my money for a product that isn’t fit for purpose I want that $15 back

17:36.78
Jeff
Um, we had a bunch of creds to play with I I expect a birth room and it’d be fun. Um, where where I started to differ was I look at it and I go okay I see the use for this product I see how it could be beneficial I think that they’re they’re marketing it to everybody who wants to. Test their content. So that’s of course going to be website owners and agency owners and bloggers and writers and kind of you know I mean Seo people. We’re the perfect client for a tool like this I think I would think and when I you know we haven’t looked for one I have to admit you know we haven’t been like hey we should get ahead of checking. On our team because we trust our team. You know what? I mean? Um, but at the same time I see how these could be beneficial on a bigger scale now a thousand 1500 word article blog article that we’re discussing here in the you know in in in seo hive and of course just with general website Seo.

18:21.44
peteeveritt
So.

18:33.92
Jeff
That’s a really small sample size. That’s not a lot of data to analyze um a 30 page research paper a college thesis A you know a newspaper article and and something something a lot more. Ah. You know, fleshed out larger sky. Everything like that. That’s where I see something like this being useful now is it ready for that I don’t know it may not be but that’s where I could go. That’s the client for this type of product.

18:59.60
peteeveritt
Well no, you see? Yes you you have a point and I I agree with you in principle. However, you are forgetting 1 key tip another tip that they gave in their help docs so. Their help documentation was very much geared around false positives and how to improve your content for false positives and 1 of the tips they gave in their help documentation for this was to make sure that the content you scan isn’t too short or. Too long. So I yeah isn’t isn’t too short or too long now I can’t I’ve I’ve got what I’m looking at is the notes that we were chatting about with the with the agency partnering with the client and I don’t i.

19:39.35
Jeff
Um I missed the too long mention and too short I assumed but too long I did not.

19:52.74
peteeveritt
Can’t hand on heart say whether they gave a word count of what too short and too long was I can’t honestly remember, but it was to make sure the content you scan isn’t too short or too long. So that’s again, a real world scenario. Yeah yeah, granted if you’re. Producing a podcast ah a podcast producing a website and you’re writing 600 word blog posts I get it. It’s you’re probably not optimizing that much because you’re they’re so short anyway, in which case a tool like this doesn’t you, you’re right? You’re not really giving it too much to go on but then on the same note we’ve we’ve kind of been. Ah, we’ve kind of evolved into this world where you know chat Gpt we all the training that we have for it is to keep conversations. Keep chats going for particular subjects because it learns and it learns and the output gets better as time goes by. And you know we have ah we have chats ah chats for clients where we’ve been processing particular parts of data for them and the chats are really quite long because again, you’ve been sort of educating the the bot into what this particular client’s about but all of a sudden we’ve now got a tool which says whoa. It can’t be too short. You can’t be on the short end but it also can’t be too long so we don’t want all that context what we want to do is take your $15 and run for the hills. Um, so sorry, that’s my cynic. That’s the cynic in be coming out again. But that’s ah yeah, you you you can’t this particular tool anyway, couldn’t.

21:16.96
Jeff
Ah.

21:23.10
peteeveritt
Scan a 30 page thesis because it would just throw up an error that’s too long.

21:25.15
Jeff
See I did not I did not learn that that now I don’t even know how to you know how to and like respond to that. That’s just Goldilocks is my name of Goldilocks now.

21:33.11
peteeveritt
Right? So this hang on does that make me one of the bears.

21:44.55
Jeff
Let’s let let let’s move on before it gets too awkward.

21:46.71
peteeveritt
Yeah, ah so to just just to cover the in Broad Brush Stroke terms the um in Broad Brush Stroke terms the ah the actions that it’s said to take for false positives. This is no word of a lie are this. Firstly remove introductions conclusions and lists from the text that is to be scanned secondly make sure that the content you Scan is not too short or too long as I say there may have been word counts around that but I don’t include them and thirdly and this is a direct quote be be aware that false positives happen. Great. So now I’ve just got to be ah aware that they happen that makes the world better.

22:31.65
Jeff
Ah, oh boy.

22:33.25
peteeveritt
so so I’m not for 1 minute I should also say that we we didn’t just just sort of go and draw our own conclusions about this. We did go and check them out on trust pilot we went and check them out on Reddit. There was some very big profiles about them or threads about them in those um in those platforms. And the reviews of them were absolutely shocking people saying don’t waste your money you know 15 books. You’ll never get back all that kind of stuff. Um, so needless to say we’re not the biggest advocate for them right now. However, it did throw up 2 things I think which is where ultimately where this podcast is going to go. 1 is it really did make us have a real world conversation with agency partners about what we would class at the moment at the time of recording January Twenty Twenty Four is acceptable use of Ai within content creation on websites and the second is. That actually whether whether there will become a time where these ai checkers are of a reasonable enough standard that they become a useful thing to include in your workflow like you do with plagiarism checkers at the moment.

23:43.52
Jeff
And that’s the key that it just doesn’t fit in this workflow like I said you know Pete’s obviously very very against it I am optimistic that it will evolve that you know. I’m also optimistic that the use can be done in the correct manner. But it’s also it’s just a tool It’s not a what we were looking for and I think what our clients were expecting and probably most people that have tested out the specific one and probably many others is that they’re looking for a yes or no answer to have I been ripped off and you just can’t answer that.

24:09.99
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

24:15.30
Jeff
You know what? I mean I think that’s what everyone’s really looking for um and I like I don’t know maybe I’m just more trustworthy but like I liked their mission I was very optimistic when we signed up for this I thought I don’t want to pay for another thing I don’t want to add another step to our process I mean who does. But if it improves things if we could give clients this report. You know because we were talking. So should we generate to Poor week. Yeah,, let’s generate report. Let’s deliver them with every article. Let’s go above and Beyond and then obviously it’s just not going to benefit anybody so you know it’s not going to work in our workflow. But I think their goals to you know help make sure ai doesn’t become this. You know, big headed monster. Is admirable and you know and hopefully coming from a good place and hopefully it evolves and and and manages to get there and so that’s that’s my you know, kind of take on it there but no.

24:59.54
peteeveritt
Yeah, and you know we couldn’t have sent those reports to clients because like so like I said earlier it it isn’t well. It’s partly about the headline figure but that headline figure like you see ai content 100% and that’s not what it means to begin with it does mean it’s a confidence score.

25:17.53
Jeff
Um.

25:19.20
peteeveritt
And the second thing is you then you know if you then engage with their process and remove the intro remove the conclusion remove any um ah remove any lists and either bulleted or or ah numbered lists and that kind of thing. Um, then you. Ah, when the client then sees the report if they actually spend the time to look at it. They’ll say but that piece of content that you’ve scanned isn’t actually the piece of content that’s on the website because there’s bits missing so hence the report is therefore meaningless anyway and and the third thing. Ah and it would absolutely yeah.

25:47.87
Jeff
That would look sketchy the climate bit. Why’d you why’ you pull out all the stuff to get a good score that doesn’t look right? Yeah like I understand from a technical point but it doesn’t make sense to do it.

25:56.10
peteeveritt
Yeah, Absolutely oh yeah, So so that there you go and the other thing just to be fully clear I should also say that there was an element in the help Docs about ah topics which were more triggered than others and they they. Specifically said that comprehensive topics such as academic and scientific pieces of content would be more likely to trigger false positives than others Now. It’s like academic and scientific for starters. Academic could be any subject that you can study Academically. So yeah, it’s not particularly.. Ah yeah, a very overarching statement as Well. So I’m just trying to be there.

26:38.82
Jeff
And and that’s what I was thinking was the best use too I was like see I could see it being used to make sure research papers aren’t Nope turns out not okay I guess I should have read more of the help ducks than Pete did ah.

26:44.19
peteeveritt
Yeah, absolutely well. This is maybe why I wanted to just throw it out the window and at my money back but hey you you persevered Kelly Kelly you were an absolute angel going through that because you honestly there was not enough hours was in the day for me to to even consider it and so.

27:03.27
Jeff
Um.

27:03.67
peteeveritt
That’s ah that said we maybe she would put put a link go or a shout out to Kelly in there in the show notes for this because she she was an absolute angel. Yeah, she’s she is ah she keeps our content team flowing smoothly and ah yeah, if we didn’t have Kelly in our lives you.

27:07.22
Jeff
Our our hero our hero sorry my mic’s in the way I can’t move my hands in the right spots today.

27:22.85
peteeveritt
I was going to say you and I have a lot less hair. You’ve not got much to get going with to be honest, um.

27:28.51
Jeff
You guys gonna let me take this abuse you’re gonna let get into comments. Can you somebody build me help me up here insult piece Somehow for me, he had to really dig deep there Ouch that hurts never criticize a man in his losing of his hair.

27:38.32
peteeveritt
That’s not difficult. That’s not that’s not difficult. So Let’s let’s move this on as we as we come into to sort of land with this show. Let’s move this on to um to. What So What were the conclusions. We came to what what? Yeah how? how did that discussion about acceptable use kind of type.

28:00.38
Jeff
Yeah I think eventually we I mean not eventually. But ultimately what what happened is we just clarified our stance and it didn’t change I don’t think it’s changed at all. It’s you know it’s been the same and it’s that hey you know. Research from what’s available information that’s available. That’s how we and other content writers out there manage to you know, write interesting articles about topics that they have no education on the internet a can educate you very quickly not going to lie. Um, but it’s also you know. It’s their own flavor and that’s that’s what you have to do with it. You have to write it. You have to you know, use your own language in your own words and you can’t just put in these ideas and let something spit it out and then expect that to be perfect. So We’ve never had that idea or that you know we’ve never we’ve never tried that we never want to do that and none of our writers have which has been fantastic.

28:50.83
peteeveritt
3

28:53.70
Jeff
Beyond that there’s a lot of great tools. You know, um like you’re big on surf for Seo I haven’t used that much myself. But if there’s a tool that can go out and help find the the you know the research for you great. You know if you can look at your competitors and see what they’re doing and give you some information. Great.

29:05.94
peteeveritt
Yeah, so so that’s that’s that’s exactly it I mean we we summarized it in the in the sort of email to the agency partner to say look we we accept that we can use Ai for research planning and data processing.

29:10.51
Jeff
Um.

29:23.85
peteeveritt
However, all copy needs to be handwritten surfer for those surfer now has and has for maybe six months or so it does have an ai generator within it which we don’t use but where surfer shines where it came into its own. The reason we use it is because it. Uses Ai when you stipulate that you want to write a piece of content about x it uses Ai to benchmark the words that you’re writing against the top 10 results. So it gives you. A steer on copy length that gives you a steer on how many paragraphs and headings there are it gives you a ste on how many images there are it gives you a steer on how many related keywords are used how many keyword variations are used how many internal links there are and it does this in real time. So as you’re writing like in a Google doc. It’s got a panel on the right hand side and gives you a score out of 100 um, which is also broken into areas of um, four different areas that that make up that score. So it’s and and as I say it’s doing this in real time so you can be confident that the stuff you are writing you are writing competitively to rank within the serps. That’s where it’s like absolute gold. Because you you know as a copywriter as an agency that’s writing for a client on a particular topic. You need to know that the the work you’re putting in right now is going to have tangible result. So um, yeah, that’s that’s for data processing.

30:49.23
peteeveritt
Absolutely fine to use it in that scenario you’re using it for the betterment of the client. The end result the pete the words that go on the page a still handwritten copy that is tailored for the client for their commercial objectives in their tone of voice that is you know it’s designed to do the the job for them. Um, and yeah I that. That’s where I see it as being powerful not look. We’re going to end up in a really bad place if we end up in a website where the machines are learning from machine generated copy and then the web’s just going to become the same God knows where we’ll end up I Can you imagine the tangents we could go off if that if that’s the yeah.

31:18.12
Jeff
Um, yeah.

31:24.55
Jeff
I know I can’t I’m so I’m scared I’m not like fearful now I’ve been someone I’ve worked with robotics and Ai for decades like before this was common stuff.

31:28.19
peteeveritt
Yeah, me.

31:36.61
Jeff
I’ve never been fearful for things I’ve never been fearful of robots taken over the world or doing any of that crazy stuff like I’ve built them trust me, they ain’t going to do it but this is the problem and and again this is why I think I still had a bit of ah maybe of an acceptance or you know I felt bad for the product that we’re.

31:43.45
peteeveritt
Yeah.

31:55.88
Jeff
Discussing and not naming because I’m worried I am worried about it running away with with data. You know what I mean and just nothing malicious, but if it starts I don’t know you know? Yeah, if you have ah if you have a teacher that’s out there teaching kids things that are blatantly wrong. Those kids are going to have that info for the rest of their lives. You know? and oh my teacher said that you know Saturn’s in another solar system. Um, so that’s what it is you know I mean it only takes one little error like that in a machine to be compounded tenfold a thousandfold who knows I mean I don’t even I don’t know.

32:31.64
Jeff
Hopefully my kids don’t come and tell me Saturn’s in another solar system tomorrow and I’ll find out I just ah, will that one into the machine existence or something.

32:38.78
peteeveritt
So um, I’ll drop a message after this and just tell him to drop it in in the next couple of days and you’ll be like wait. What.

32:45.69
Jeff
Ah, that would be really funny actually.

32:48.56
peteeveritt
Just just drop it into conversation. You know, wait wait till the weekend and then just drop this one into conversation and watch the look on your dad’s face. Ah, in fact, better still film it for me. Ah.

32:59.44
Jeff
Do it in like a month because I’ll for sure forgotten about it by the.

33:06.51
peteeveritt
So um, anyway you know this this was one of those things that as it was happening Jeff and I looked at each other and we thought you know we’re going to have to do a podcast episode about this because it was just it was just one of those real world scenarios that was too good. Not to mention on the show. And I’m sure we will get to a place where these tools have their sensitivity turned down a bit and their accuracy turned up a bit and they may become part of our everyday process like surf like um copyscape or plagiarism checkers or that kind of thing have already. But. Ah, the minute they’re just not there yet and they’re just there to make money for their founders and it’s ah I haven’t granted. We’ve had quite a small sample size of these products and if you have found one that you think is any good, please feel free to let us know because. I for 1 sure have a hell of a journey to change my mind on these things at the moment.

33:53.20
Jeff
Yeah I mean I’m not I’m not saying there isn’t something better out there like I said I thought I was impressed by this product until the results I you know I was I was excited to use it if there’s something else I’m I’m happy to spend another $15 against Pete’s wishes And testing it out to test it Out. Ah.

34:14.83
peteeveritt
You know before before we get you know? ah an email from both of our listeners that say that Pete shouldn’t be against you know what’s the problem. Why don’t you want to show reports to clients. That’s not what I’m saying I’m I’m all for being transparent for clients about the work that’s done and how it’s done. However.

34:26.26
Jeff
Um, no.

34:30.67
Jeff
You.

34:32.84
peteeveritt
On The same note if you’re going to use reporting software. The reports themselves need to be accurate and if they’re not accurate. Then all, you’re really doing is creating worry you’re creating a storm in a teacup and it’s not going to help anybody really in the long run. So that’s. That’s that’s what I’m saying and at the moment I don’t think these things are accurate enough in order to be included in the process and there will become a time when they are accurate enough and I’m more than open to to look at those things at that moment in time but at the minute don’t waste your Money. Don’t waste your time because we have yeah.

35:05.46
Jeff
Yeah, it might be a discussion for and a whole other discussion for another day but reporting is you know you think setting reports is good and it is. You know you want to be honest, you want to share what’s going on but sometimes they raise more questions than and they answer sometimes they create more work and. Just a lot of data and information excuse me that is not vital to a business owner or you know so there’s all kinds of things and I could go off for hours about like website reporting and audit all kinds of stuff on that front.

35:35.50
peteeveritt
Oh Unbeliev me he can The in fact, sorry the reason I joke about that is that one of the funniest things I think looking back at us setting up Pecio Hive was when we were trying to map out the processes and. This was partly due to our time zones we we we collaborated on things but we collaborated in a way of saying right? Well you go and do that and then you send it to me and then I’ll go and review it or I’ll go and modify it then I’ll send it back to you and I just remember putting together certain processes for how things were going to work particularly things like reporting. And you just sit there and say man I Know what you’re trying to do but that’s just going to cause us a headache. You can’t say that because it’s going to open up more questions than answers and because it’s not defined enough and you know this is just going to confuse people. And you know from somebody your side of the table that had run productized processes before you knew all of this stuff I Just thought I was being generous to clients and you know certain things we changed immediately other things you maybe had enough grace and let them go through and we’ve changed them since because they were causing us Headaches. So that was definitely part of the learning curve that I had to go on in setting up Pe Seo Hive and hopefully a more rounded but maybe more cynical individual because of it.

36:53.95
Jeff
And maybe is that what caused that it resolved the reporting issues and everything of just they’ve worn you down to you know you’re old and broken and withered and angry and bitter I.

37:05.93
peteeveritt
Yeah I now see the world through Seo reports and anyway anyway I think we’ve said enough but you know if if you if you do want to so you know if you’ve got any queries about any of this stuff. Um.

37:12.79
Jeff
Ah.

37:21.47
peteeveritt
Maybe the thing that’s exciting that we should maybe close this podcast with is that we’ve we’re launching on our website the ability to hold strategy calls. So we we didn’t discuss mentioning this before the show. So Jeff’s raised eyebrows are we’re talking. We’re talking about this now are we? Um, so ah, we’re aware that we’re aware the agencies.

37:34.17
Jeff
Um, surprise.

37:41.40
peteeveritt
Often just have questions and ah need either another and somebody to bounce some ideas off or need some more information or need to run something past a ah professional. You know, somebody with ah a more educated opinion than they’ve got this could be about. A website that you’re working on. It could be about a client meeting that you’ve got it could be about it could be about a discovery session. It could be about anything and ah so in order to address that in order to help more people we have decided to launch strategy sessions. You’ll be able to find them on our website Seo hi co it’ll be in the menu somewhere and um. Basically you can book a call with us to to discuss any client regardless of what oh even your own website. Um that you need some seo support for so ah, yeah, feel free to go and check that out and if you’ve got you know if if maybe you have queries about how to use Ai in in your you know in your processes. That’s what that was the connection that I made Jeff which is why I started talking about this and so feel free to go in ah feel free to go. You can book 1 online schedule in 1 of our calendars and yeah, we’ll spend. We’ll spend some time together going through it. We’ll ask you for some background information and we’ll um yeah, we’ll we’ll spend some time going through it on the call and then.

38:34.16
Jeff
Um, yeah.

38:50.79
peteeveritt
Yeah, we can. We can chat things through. Yeah.

38:51.30
Jeff
Yeah, looking forward to that You know I mean we’ve we’ve done that since day one but it’s always been like kind of on request and you know I’m having a discussion and email and stuff so we just thought let’s just make it easier for everybody and put the option out there. You know, open up our calendars a bit more on when we can and and things and so we’ll um.

39:03.67
peteeveritt
Absolutely.

39:10.10
Jeff
Looking forward to it. Um, you know these these type of discussions are always very exciting and fun in a weird kind of like nerdy way but they always end up kind of opening up a lot of doors and you know and paths and stuff so this should be fun. Um, as we go I think well. We’re excited to kind of bring more of the team into the process and 2 but for now Pete and I just can me meet more people and talking to more of our clients and you know new and old if we work with you not so it should be fun, but but yeah.

39:35.81
peteeveritt
Yeah, that was the thing I was going to mention which is this isn’t something that we’ve we we have done these calls before but with existing clients and this is now this is just open if you’ve got an Seo question. Of course we will need to validate that it it’s it’s an seo question that yeah, don’t just don’t just.

39:49.10
Jeff
And no I I’m not going to lie you can ask me anything if you want to pay for an hour of my time that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be about Seo I’ll tell you about how I’m losing my hair. Whatever you want your money.

39:53.50
peteeveritt
Bring us throughout relationship I mean in which case if you are if you want to book in for relationship advice please select Jeff’s calendar because yeah, mine mine isn’t going to be ah mine isn’t going to be so good. Um, but.

40:08.77
Jeff
So only if you want bad relationship advice.

40:12.79
peteeveritt
But yeah, that’s something that’s we’re really excited to launch at the start this year so feel free to check it out if it is going to be of use to you and if we don’t see you in a strategy session. We will see you in the next episode to have a good week. Everyone latest.

40:23.94
Jeff
Um, yeah, thanks for listening.