Let me start with a quick story:

In July 2021 (nearly two years ago!) I started a new niche site.

But instead of writing the content for it myself, I used AI.

Not because I embraced AI content.

But because I hated it.

I hated the thought of people being able to bulk-generate thousands of articles written by AI in the time it takes me to write one paragraph.

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I know this is a funny transition. But AI is here to stay and thankfully MUCH higher quality than it used to be.

I’ve used a bunch of AI article tools and the least expensive one I know of that creates high-quality articles in one click is Cuppa.

If you want to generate AI-written articles at scale but don’t want to spend big bucks, check out Cuppa! (affiliate link)

So, I started this site as a way to test whether AI content actually posed a danger, or if it was just an empty threat.

I wanted it to fail.

I wanted to prove to myself that AI content would never rank well.

Unfortunately, it started doing well almost right away.

But I wasn't too concerned yet.

Eventually Google would see how terrible the content was and do something about it, right?

My hope was in vain.

It continued doing better and better.

A year went by.

Multiple Google algorithm updates came and went.

Yet my site continued growing, completely unscathed.

It's been nearly 2 years now. May (last month) was it's best month yet.

How is it doing so well?

I finally figured it out.

Yes, the content is terrible. FAR worse even than anything ChatGPT writes.

But I accidentally did something that turned this site into a ranking powerhouse, without realizing it at the time.

It's a powerful SEO lesson I'll NEVER ignore again.

The lesson:

Topical authority matters.

When I started the site, I found a group of low competition keywords all around a single topic. I also found a few keywords that were less related (but still in the same niche).

Guess what:

My site ranks incredibly well for the group of keywords around that single topic.

And it does NOT rank well for the less-related keywords.

In case you’re wondering, by a “group of keywords around a single topic”, I mean a very niched-down topic.

For example, if my site was about basketball (it’s not), this could be keywords all relating to rules of the game. Less related keywords in this example might be player bios, basketball shoe reviews, etc.

My site is a great micro example of the power of topical authority. Despite the low-quality AI content, it ranks really well for a specific topic because it has “authority” on that topic in Google’s eyes.

The contrast between this site and my case study site (update on that coming soon!) is stark. My case study site is better in every aspect except topical authority. And yet, it barely gets any traffic.

Clearly, topical authority is a major ranking factor. I’ll be taking it very seriously from now on.

Ian

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