Google tells sites to fact-check AI content by hand. Alt text and titles count too

Google changed its search guidance on generative AI content on 1 October 2026. Sites should now fact-check AI content by hand: the page says it is “critical to manually factcheck and review” all of it before it goes live. The updated Search Central document carries the new date at the bottom.

Google now names titles, meta descriptions and alt text

The rule covers more than the body of a page. Google lists title elements, meta descriptions, structured data and image alt text, because all of them can show up in search results. The earlier version said only that the review “includes metadata”. The new one says the review “also applies” to it.

Google also added three sentences on how the models work. They do not retrieve facts. They predict likely word sequences, so the output can contain errors, which Google calls hallucinations. Search Engine Journal reports that the rest of the page did not change, including the rules on scaled content abuse.

Search Central brings the page in line with its live talks

Search Engine Roundtable says Google described the edit as an update to match what its staff already tell site owners at Search Central events. The previous version of the page dates from October 2025.

The change lands as Google cleans up after its September 2026 spam update. It also follows a Google paper on AI agents that hunt networks of low-quality channels. The guidance itself is not a ranking factor. It tells site owners what Google expects when its systems and reviewers judge quality.

Content teams that generate metadata at scale carry the risk

Some publishing tools let a model write meta descriptions and alt text for many pages at once. Google’s wording puts those fields on the same level as the article text.

A simple test is available today. Export the meta descriptions and alt texts written by a tool in the last three months and pick twenty at random. If any of them states a price, a date or a feature that is wrong, the review step Google describes is missing from the workflow.