Commodity vs non-commodity content

With the rapid arrival of LLMs (large language models) like ChatGPT and Gemini, content creation has never been easier.

You can produce an article in 15 seconds, build an SEO guide in 10 seconds, and copy-and-paste it all in 5 seconds. Some businesses have jumped on this convenience by producing reams of content, whether that be copy for service pages or editorial blogs, and published them on their website in the hopes of increasing traffic and referrals. 

But how does this regurgitated content actually perform? 

This has been the source of debate for the last 2 years. Google has finally given us some answers! 

A decline in quality 

Search engines like Google care about quality; in fact, they’re building their algorithm to care about quality. They also want websites to care about quality, and the problem with AI-generated content is that: 

1. It doesn’t produce anything original. 

2. Anybody can produce it; the content itself is not a reflection of expertise.

3. Often, it has ‘hallucinations’ and get’s things wrong.

This creates a huge problem with trust. When someone (or a business) can present like an authoritative source through expert language when they might not necessarily have the expertise, it creates a troubling picture.

Equally, when it comes to SEO, the idea that rankings can be “gamified” (like keyword stuffing back in 2015) is also something Google is actively fighting against. 

But how can engines like Google infer quality from the internet alone? And more importantly, how can businesses ensure their rankings and referrals aren’t wiped out in the next Google update?

By building commodity content. We’ll explore more below. 

What is commodity vs non-commodity content?

In a recent Google update, the search engine distinguished two types of content: Commodity and non-commodity content. 

You can see a good visual overview above. Let’s get into the difference below. 

What is commodity content?

Commodity content is content that is unique to your business and useful to your potential customers.

Or as Google puts it:

“Creating content that people find unique, compelling, and useful will likely influence your website's presence in generative AI search in the long run more than any of the other suggestions in this guide. “

This type of content doesn’t necessarily serve a commercial purpose; instead, it’s about building connection and trust. It focuses on that community element that many marketing teams have been championing this year. 

Here are some examples of commodity content types: 

• Experience-driven content: This type of content might look like “What we learned from X”, which reflects a personal investigation or experience of something. This is super valuable in giving your audience some insight into something they might not have experienced themselves - they can live almost vicariously through you. 

• Opinion and perspective: If you’ve built a community, they want to hear your opinions! Think about building content around this structure: “Everyone should know these 3 things about X”. 

• Authority and expertise: If you feel confident that you’ve got insight into something that fewer people (or your ICP) do, think about how you can share that. Original data is a huge win for the LLM systems! 

• Community and culture: Content comes in many forms. Remember that LinkedIn is the second-most cited source for LLMs, so engaging in your community through comments, reactions, and more is always a big plus. 

Now, let’s take a look at the other side of the content coin. 

What is non-commodity content? 

Non-commodity content is content that drives commercial intent for your business. 

For a long time, many businesses only relied on this type of content. It’s not surprising, as it aligns really closely to commercial objectives, so it feels like you’re supporting your own product or service. 

Traditional organic search also used to love this type of content, which meant you could optimise each editorial for long-tail key phrases or keywords and gain lots of traffic. The problem is when you only focus on this content type. 

Non-commodity looks like: 

• Buying and decision content: This type of content gives some supporting information about specific products or services. It might look like reviews or product comparisons, e.g. “Apple vs Android: which has the best operating system?”. 

• Listicles: Great for giving a broad overview of a larger quantity of something, listicles often reference many things to give the audience a broader overview. For example, “7 ways to…”, “Top 10 companies that…”. 

• Definitions and basics: Often referred to as educational content, this looks at providing the audience with more information about a subject. 

• How-to content: Advisory content, this type gives practical advice on how to achieve XY or Z. For example, “A step-by-step guide on how to create a Shopify website”. 

This content is great for targeting specific search queries. 

The battle for authenticity and convenience

Let’s be clear: businesses should strive to create both types of content.

Each has a value-add. But over the last 15 years, particularly when we consider SEO, the majority of content has been non-commodity. This is because it has a higher intent for commercial results. 

For example, an outdoors jacket company might produce a piece of content like “10 best waterproof jackets when trekking”. Of course, it’s obvious that they’ll place themselves in either the top position or strategically in the top 3 to avoid a certain level of suspicion. 

But people aren’t stupid. Obviously, the content has been written with internal bias. It’s not very objective or trust-building to claim you’re the best (even if you think you are). Instead, businesses should strive to show they’re the best in less evident ways. 

This is where authenticity comes in. 

Google wants to see that businesses are creating content not only designed to sell. Let’s be honest, it’s boring. No one wants to read 10 articles on your blog that talks about how amazing you are. 

This is why Google is shifting its perspective to non-commodity. 

What about convenience?

Another tricky aspect of commodity content is that it’s not as convenient to produce - but that’s kind of the point. 

Google doesn’t want a pile of articles that can all be produced by AI in 10 seconds. It’s very easy to ‘gamify’ this type of content, and while that may have produced good ranking results 5 years ago, the algorithm is trying to change this. 

For businesses, this might feel like a crutch, but it shouldn’t. 

Non-commodity content might take more time to produce, for example, if you want to collect data or create QnA articles with influential people in your industry.

But at the end of the day, the content you produce should be providing some value to your customer profile. If that’s not your aim, you might need to rethink your content strategy. 

So, who’s going to win the organic search war? 

The businesses that win the organic search war will be the ones that produce content that provides connection and true value for their ideal customer profiles. 

Think about how this translates to an actionable plan. 

Are you going to produce a content schedule to make sure you’re getting enough value out? Are you going to audit your current blog to see if it’s possible to repurpose content? By giving yourself a structure, you can make sure you stay on the right path. 

Need help with building this type of content? 

We have over 15 years of experience in creating impactful content that produces real connections with your audience and gets results in rankings and referrals.