This is quite a frustrating experience and is not the first time it's happened to me.
I use a digital PR platform called Qwoted. It allows journalists from a range of publications to get quotes from expert sources, which later get used within their articles to ensure they are delivering an insightful piece backed up by said experts.
The platform isn't free, costing around $150 per month to access it.
I personally use it to look out for opportunities to put some of my clients forward to share their expertise - often if your quote gets used, the journalist will feature you and you will get a link back to your clients website.
As an SEO consultant this is a bit of a win-win situation for everyone involved - the journalist gets to cite an expert from the industry, enabling her to cover any required EEAT elements from an SEO point of view.
It's worth noting that EEAT (which stands for Expertise, Events, Authority & Trust) seems to only hold value for "Your Money Your Life" (YMYL) topics, and is a fairly contentious topic as many SEOs will argue it doesn't really exist, or the SEO value is neglibible.
I don't think anyone can argue that if a journalist is writing an article about gardening, and they're able to quote an actual professional gardener within the piece, it's only going to add value to the end product.
So - a platform like Qwoted serves as a bit of a matchmaking service, connecting journalists from publications with experts from a range of topics.
As a brand or a solo-operator you could of course sign up to Qwoted and look for relevant opportunities yourself, pitching your thoughts to journalists whenever the opportunity arises, but it might make more sense to utilise a digital PR company, or an SEO consultant (like me!) to do this on your behalf. It becomes a tedious, tiring experience to try and tackle it yourself.
Most opportunities are very time-sensitive and there's an element of first-come first-served; the sooner you can share your experts' comments, the higher your chances of being included in a piece.
I personally use Qwoted to pitch on behalf of several of my clients - and I had quite an interesting experience when trying to win coverage for the wildlife-friendly gardener I'm currently working with.
Link Builders are Utilising AI for Link Building Pitches
It's probably no surprise to hear that link builders have been utilising AI when answering journalist pitches - and I don't mean just using ChatGPT to generate answers to a journalist's question, which I think has already been covered fairly well - I recall the brilliant Jo O'Reilly did a very insightful piece over on SearchEngineLand about this - including the horrific story of how someone used AI to fake the persona of a cancer-survivor.
I've also been on the other side of the fence, and have used platforms like Qwoted to ask for quotes from experts on a particular topic, and I can tell you that AI-generated responses stand out like a sore-thumb - at least to my highly-trained eye 😄
Using ChatGPT to generate responses is a fast way to pollute the web with absolute rubbish, with AI just regurgitating whatever has been said on the web about the topic already, albeit in a more robotic, non-human way. Journalists (I will argue) should be trained to spot an AI generated response, from the use of adverbs like "Moreover..." to begin the start of a new point they will be making to back up previous responses, to the very formulaic way it responds to specific questions: (basic intro, point to be made, summary).
I would also argue that it should fall upon publications to provide the paid training for their journalists, and not to expect them to know this kind of information off the top of their head - after all, it reflects badly on the publication if they are making use of AI generated quotes or experts. And the publications pay the writers (often quite poorly) on a per-piece basis. Journalists are often stressed with tight-deadlines and metrics to be hit - it's not fair to lay the blame at their feet.
My Experience with AI Generated Experts - Or - Losing Out to a Fake AI Gardener
Going back to my own recent experience just a few days ago - I saw a relevant opportunity for my client (a wildlife-friendly garden designer in the UK) to share his thoughts on planting and growing an Oak tree.
I shared the questions with my client, got some good answers, and then submitted to the journalist.
I didn't hear anything back (but often you don't - you might just have to remember to check the published article in a few weeks time to find out if you were successful) but this time Qwoted sent out a message to say thanks for pitching but unfortunately your client's quotes weren't included - this is the client that was successful.
Looking at the article of the source that was cited on Homes & Gardens, it struck me fairly early on that the headshot of the client was at least AI generated.
If you spend just a few minutes using an AI site like ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com you will start to get a feel for what these fake headshot photos look like.
Backgrounds aren't always accurate on the site above, but you can use a free online tool like remove.bg to remove the background and choose a more suitable one.
Googling "Evan Torchio" brings up a few results, and to the busy journalist it might answer any doubts they had - there's a Facebook profile for Evan (which was made about 2 years ago and doesn't seem to be in use), an About.me profile, and plenty of other publications that have cited Evan as a source on a range of gardening/tree topics.
If we take Evan's website TreeMenders and put it through SEO tool Ahrefs, we can see all the links it has found - and it's safe to say they're doing quite well from this link building tactic.
At the end of the day - the article that Homes & Gardens published (growing an oak tree from an acorn) does all it needs to do, from the point of view of the publication anyway.
Part of me wonders whether the publication really cares about whether the "expert" cited is real or not... at the end of the day, there is clearly a digital footprint for Evan that Google will be aware of, so from their point of view they probably feel they've done their job.
Obviously I wouldn't agree with that take - as it sets a dangerous precident - especially when we start to cover topics that hold more importance than growing oak trees...
3 Signs That an Expert Might Not Be Real...
It's hard to prove beyond doubt that such an expert does not exist - I have often considered that someone might not want to be the front-facing head of a brand (in which case I would tell them not to engage in digital PR type activities like this one!) but I trust my gut a lot in these situations.
These are some other telltale signs that someone might not be real - there are often website checks that can be made:
1 - Often the website they represent will be a generic service provider business, often targeting a wide radius of locations across a country. Or the website will belong to someone who simply provides informational content; because they have chosen to monetise the website through affiliate-linking to products they are selling (usually on Amazon.com) and/or through the ad networks used on the site.
On the service-area front many of these businesses will have a service-area section, or a location section, whereby they list all the locations they operate within. This is an SEO-play - and works well for lead-gen businesses. Usually when a site looks clearly SEO-optimised in such a way, your suspicions (as a journalist) should be on high-alert.
2 - The website will lack any real human imagery - no photos or information on team members, or if they do have images they are also AI generated. Descriptions of team members may also be quite generic and broad, without much personalisation or unique traits.
In the case of Tree Menders above, there are no photos of the team and not even a mention of Ethan (bit weird that Ethan wouldn't get a mention on the About Us page - considering all the coverage he has on the web?!)
3 - These types of businesses often exist solely as a lead-gen operation and as such the "Tree Menders" business isn't actually in operation.
In this case it's fairly blatent as Tree Menders have a page promoting their partner program - offering businesses in Canada the chance to buy leads.
This is the actual purpose of Tree Menders - they function as a lead-gen business in the tree removal space, whereby they can sell any of the leads they receive through their website to any legit/genuine businesses in the area.
It's not always obvious that this is going on on a lead-gen website - as a layperson looking to get a tree removed, you probably aren't going to care if someone from "Tree Menders" comes to remove your tree, or if some other local tree surgeon deals with it.
Summary - How Can Platforms Like Qwoted Deal With AI-Generated Experts?
Personally I think a site like Qwoted could easily put together some resources to help journalists on the platform to spot AI generated experts or AI-written responses. After all, it's in their best interests to filter out those people utilising AI to mislead journalists and their publications.
Whilst some blame should be aimed at the SEOs who are utilising such tactics to gain wins for their clients, or for their own lead-gen machines, sadly I think that's never going to stop - someone will always try to utilise such blackhat SEO tactics.
I think most of the responsibility falls upon the publications making use of Qwoted to gather responses to ensure their writers and journalists are trained at spotting the telltale signs of an AI generated quote or expert. Train them up (which shouldn't take long) and they'll get better at their job, and your articles won't feature fabricated people going forward.
We're in strange times. Tech has been used by bad forces to do a huge amount of damage to society (just look to the US to see the impact of Elon Musk and co) - misinformation and disinformation is at an all time high.
Maybe it's time within the world of SEO and journalism we also try and collectively do better?
