Over the previous few years, I’ve watched AI content material creation instruments quickly acquire adoption throughout the Search engine optimization/GEO trade. These instruments provide the promise of leveraging AI to automate content material creation, scale back headcount, minimize prices, and scale output.
As somebody who has spent the final decade serving to corporations get better from Google algorithm updates, my spidey senses began tingling the minute I heard the pitches for a lot of of those instruments. Even earlier than AI was a part of the dialog, Google already had a protracted historical past of lowering the visibility of automated content material in its search outcomes.
Regardless of latest developments within the high quality of AI outputs, I’ve remained skeptical that publishing AI-generated or AI-assisted content material at scale can drive sustained efficiency in Google’s search outcomes. That is very true now, given how Google up to date its rating programs lately particularly to demote overly optimized, Search engine optimization-driven content material.
Over the previous a number of months, I’ve been monitoring greater than 220 web sites that have been publicly recognized, both by themselves or by their AI content material distributors, as prospects of assorted AI content material creation, automation, and scaling platforms. These instruments totally write articles, help with writing them, or use AI automations and workflows to assist content material creation. Many of those instruments additionally now deal with driving visibility, mentions, and citations in AI search responses (AEO/GEO).
I wished to investigate what occurs after the claims of huge wins.
A constant sample emerged throughout the 220+ websites I’ve been monitoring, and I consider it’s regarding sufficient to be value writing about: it really works, till it doesn’t.
Under, I’ll share among the traits I’m observing, plus a wide range of frequent Search engine optimization/GEO approaches I consider could also be inflicting declines in natural search (and consequently, AI search) visibility. As a reminder, what’s harmful for Search engine optimization may also be harmful for AI search, largely due to RAG.
Methodology & Disclaimers
Earlier than we dive in, it’s essential to set the stage with my strategy and supply some essential disclaimers.
This evaluation is predicated on third-party Search engine optimization measurement information: natural visitors estimates and natural web page depend time sequence information from Ahrefs, corroborated towards the Sistrix Visibility Index information to verify broader visibility patterns. High-traffic URLs have been recognized utilizing Ahrefs’ top-pages export. The place I describe URL patterns or proportion modifications, I’m quoting immediately from these third-party instruments as of Could 2026.
The dataset covers greater than 220 shopper domains tracked throughout the publicly revealed customer-stories pages of over a dozen AI content material platforms. For a lot of of those websites, I narrowed the evaluation to a particular subfolder the place the AI-assisted content material had been revealed, both recognized immediately within the case examine itself or inferred from a pointy enhance in new pages across the time of the case examine’s publication.
The evaluation, conclusions, and suggestions all through this piece replicate my very own skilled opinions based mostly on greater than a decade of serving to corporations get better from Google algorithm updates. Different Search engine optimization/GEO practitioners could disagree with my findings and approaches, and particular person websites and techniques will at all times have their very own context.
3 Essential Disclaimers About This Knowledge:
First, these are third-party estimates, not first-party analytics. They’re well-validated instruments within the Search engine optimization trade, however they don’t seem to be excellent measurements of natural search efficiency.
Second, the visitors declines described right here may replicate many components, together with however not restricted to algorithmic changes by Google, on-site modifications by the location operators themselves, off-site aggressive dynamics, model modifications, acquisitions, seasonality, and modifications to inner website structure. I’m not asserting that any AI content material device immediately triggered any visitors consequence described on this piece. I’m describing a correlation noticed throughout many listed websites that share comparable content material patterns and natural visitors trajectories.
Third, distributors and particular domains are intentionally not named right here. The sample is the story, not the precise actors. Any resemblance to a particular firm, vendor, or case examine is incidental to the broader sample described.
What The Knowledge Reveals: Speedy Progress Earlier than A Steep Decline
If there may be one factor the information makes clear, it’s this: scaling content material manufacturing with AI shouldn’t be a low-risk technique for natural search. It will possibly produce actual short-term positive factors in each Search engine optimization and AI search (LLMs use engines like google), however throughout this dataset, these positive factors have hardly ever held. In lots of circumstances, the eventual loss has exceeded the preliminary peak.
Throughout the group of 220+ websites and subfolders I analyzed:
- 54% misplaced 30% or extra of their peak natural visitors.
- 39% misplaced 50% or extra.
- 22% misplaced 75% or extra.
Inside these declines, a recurring trajectory seems: a fast development in natural pages over six to 12 months; an natural visitors peak inside roughly three to 6 months of the content material peak; after which a steep decline in visitors that erases a lot of the acquire (and steadily drops under the prior baseline) inside the following yr.
Most of those visitors drops occurred after the case research have been revealed (which additionally makes me ponder whether the case research themselves could possibly be contributing to the declines). Within the instance under, the case examine was revealed in January 2025, indicated by the the black star under:
I’m additionally constantly monitoring modifications to natural web page development and natural visitors to those websites and subfolders over time. Wanting on the up to date information, a considerable variety of these manufacturers seem to have considerably diminished their content material footprints in 2025 and 2026, usually eradicating, redirecting, or 410’ing most of the identical pages featured as success tales in revealed case research. This might clarify the latest drop in pages (yellow line) proven within the above screenshot (and doubtlessly, the corresponding enhance in natural search visitors).
In lots of circumstances, these case research stay revealed to this present day, however the pages they reference don’t.
The Acquainted Rank & Tank Playbook
When a website begins seeing visitors drops on account of sitewide content material high quality points, it’s hardly ever a delicate decline. As Glenn Gabe refers to it, a greater label could be “Mount AI”: steep development, adopted by a equally formed drop-off in natural visitors, as soon as Google’s programs have gathered sufficient indicators to establish what’s going on.
Under are a number of examples of case examine websites that used AI to scale content material creation and noticed large drops in natural visitors after their case research have been revealed:
This sample is constant throughout industries, together with cybersecurity, journey, advertising and marketing, SaaS, healthcare, B2B companies, crypto, and shopper items, and it reveals up throughout distributors.
The form of the road within the chart is much like trajectories now we have seen amongst many websites affected by Google’s algorithm updates lately. It’s the identical boom-bust cycle the Search engine optimization trade has watched repeatedly in numerous varieties, accelerated this time by the velocity at which AI instruments have enabled website homeowners to scale content material.
The Search engine optimization Business Simply Went By This
What is difficult to overstate is simply how lately the Search engine optimization trade watched a near-identical cycle play out. Many SEOs and website homeowners are nonetheless licking their wounds from a brutal spherical of Google updates and new spam insurance policies that obliterated many websites’ visitors a couple of years again.
In September 2023, Google launched the Useful Content material Replace, essentially the most aggressive crackdown it had completed in years towards content material that, in accordance with its announcement, “feels prefer it was created for engines like google as a substitute of individuals.”
Roughly six months later, in March 2024, it adopted up with the longest core replace in Google’s historical past, which Google states was designed to “scale back unhelpful, unoriginal content material in search outcomes by 45%.” Throughout two consecutive replace cycles, Google’s acknowledged goal was the identical factor: content material produced at scale, no matter whether or not the manufacturing methodology was human, AI, or a mix of each.
Alongside the March 2024 replace, Google formalized a brand new spam coverage known as “Scaled Content material Abuse,” explicitly naming the observe it was working to suppress: producing many pages to govern search rankings, no matter authorship.
The Search engine optimization trade continues to be working via the collateral injury from these updates, together with important losses for a lot of small publishers, a few of whom have been publishing authentic, human-written content material however used extreme Search engine optimization frameworks that the updates probably flagged. The casualty checklist additionally included some publishers who had partnered with advert networks and different rising instruments providing AI content material creation and scaling as a service.
Many websites affected by the HCU haven’t recovered to this present day, regardless of their monumental efforts. I spent important time in 2024 working and talking with many website homeowners attempting to dig themselves out of that gap.
Having spent a whole lot of hours analyzing and presenting about these two main updates, I can say that the content material I’m seeing revealed with many of those new AI instruments usually seems to be and feels quite a bit like the precise sort of content material that was wiped off the map with these 2023 and 2024 Google updates.
8 Recurring Content material Patterns That Are Dangerous For Search engine optimization And AI Search
So, what kinds of content material am I seeing revealed by corporations utilizing AI instruments to construct articles that I consider are in the end dangerous for Search engine optimization? I consider the reply lies in web page templates that purpose to affect Search engine optimization rankings, AI search responses, and/or citations in AI search, however are extremely formulaic and simply repeatable by rivals.
What begins as a real strategy to attempt to construct useful content material (and rating a point out/quotation) finally ends up being an simply detectable footprint by Google when sufficient websites are publishing comparable pages, and the index turns into flooded with tens or a whole lot of hundreds of those comparable pages, which is simpler than ever to do utilizing AI.
That is precisely what Google means when it talks about writing for engines like google, not people.
Reviewing top-traffic URLs throughout the declining domains, eight distinct content material templates seem repeatedly. Most websites seeing declines within the evaluation use some mixture of no less than three or 4. Probably the most aggressive ones use all eight. Sometimes, affected websites even have a whole lot or hundreds of those articles, which amplifies the issue and usually results in steeper visitors losses.
1. Comparability Pages At Scale
Sample: /weblog/[product-A]-vs-[product-B] revealed at scale throughout most cheap head-to-head matchups in a class. Noticed throughout the dataset for product-vs-product pairings, framework-vs-framework pairings, and, in no less than one case, concept-vs-concept pairings unrelated to the writer’s precise enterprise.
2. The “What Is X” Glossary
Single-term, single-question pages designed to be cited by AI engines. Sample: /sources/what-is-[term] or /glossary/[term]. Noticed throughout the dataset, together with programmatic glossaries scaled throughout a number of languages from a single supply template. Scaling translations with AI and with out human evaluate may also steadily result in sitewide content material high quality points.
3. The “Greatest [X] For [Y]” Listicle
Probably the most acquainted AI-content template, with origins within the affiliate-content period. This sample was noticed throughout the dataset in each broad-category and narrow-niche variants.
4. The Self-Promotional Listicle
A variant of No. 3 through which the writer is itself a competitor within the class being ranked, and steadily lists itself because the No. 1 finest amongst rivals. These pages typically lack actual proof that the corporate genuinely examined all the rivals within the checklist, which is beneficial by Google for evaluate pages.
I wrote about this “listicle” web page template inflicting Search engine optimization/GEO points in February 2026, when I discovered that many corporations publishing dozens, a whole lot, and even hundreds of self-promotional listicles noticed excessive visitors drops starting on the identical day (roughly Jan. 21, 2026). This sample was noticed throughout a number of websites within the dataset, most aggressively in B2B companies.
5. The Competitor-Vs-Options Web page
Sample: /weblog/[competitor-brand]-alternatives, or, within the extra programmatic type, devoted touchdown pages constructed for each named competitor in a class. This strategy was noticed extensively throughout the dataset, together with one case the place the majority of a website’s high visitors pages have been devoted to particular person competitor model names.
6. Programmatic Location And Language Scaling
This is without doubt one of the oldest methods within the Search engine optimization e-book, and one which I’ve seen websites get in bother for with algorithm updates for no less than 10 years. The strategy: Use one template multiplied throughout each geography or language a search engine will index, with little or no distinctive content material per native touchdown web page.
In lots of circumstances, the corporate publishing these pages usually doesn’t have actual brick-and-mortar places in every of the neighborhood/metropolis/state pages they’re focusing on.
This web page sort was noticed throughout the dataset together with state-by-state content material, country-by-country service pages, and the multilingual programmatic glossaries described above.
7. The FAQ Farm
Every web page solutions precisely one query. Sample: /faq/[full-question]. Designed for extraction by AI engines: a transparent query within the URL, the reply within the first paragraph, bullet factors within the physique, schema markup on the backside.
The issue? This strategy creates a whole lot of low-quality content material and baggage for the location when applied at scale. Scaling FAQs was additionally noticed extensively throughout the dataset, together with in industries the place the templated tone was a noticeable mismatch with the writer’s model context.
Here’s a screenshot of my March 2024 Amsive article advising towards the identical actual factor:
It’s additionally value noting that simply final week, Google introduced it was deprecating FAQ Wealthy Outcomes, which I consider may need one thing to do with this new inflow of FAQ schema geared toward attempting to earn citations and mentions in AI search.
8. Off-Matter Content material Printed At Scale
Publishing off-topic content material, with no obvious connection to the writer’s precise enterprise, at excessive volumes, is without doubt one of the quickest methods to get in bother with search engine algorithms. This was additionally an enormous downside in the course of the Useful Content material Replace and March 2024 Core Updates, when many websites have been experimenting with publishing off-topic content material, like humorous quotes, jokes, child names, horoscopes, and different high-volume articles that weren’t truly topically related for the writer.
This methodology was used throughout a number of websites within the dataset, together with items on leisure subjects on a companies platform, lists of names and jokes, social-media memes on B2B web sites, and historic or biographical content material on business-focused websites.
The Late January 2026 Unconfirmed Google Replace
A secondary sample seems within the information round late January 2026: a wave of websites with explicitly GEO-optimized, self-promotional listicles, plus different dangerous Search engine optimization/GEO approaches, noticed natural visitors declines between 40% and 95% over the January-April 2026 window.
Google didn’t announce or verify an replace by identify in January 2026, however no less than 40 websites I recognized noticed a damaging pattern starting round Jan. 20, 2026. In lots of circumstances, the impression was remoted to the corporate’s weblog or different subfolder containing a whole lot of new Search engine optimization-driven content material. My evaluation discovered that a few of these corporations have been scaling dozens, a whole lot, and even hundreds of those self-promoting listicles, through which they named their very own firm the No. 1 finest when in comparison with rivals.
I think this adjustment on Google’s finish was simply the beginning of Google (and certain the LLM suppliers constructing on high of search) starting to demote this sort of content material in search outcomes, and it seems that the impression was higher than simply the listicles themselves. For affected websites, all the weblog or subfolder containing these articles usually additionally noticed declines. In different circumstances, the impression was carried over throughout the complete area.
How To Use AI Content material Instruments Safely
I do consider there’s a means to make use of AI content material instruments safely, and a means for these instruments to assist the creation of high-quality content material. The instruments themselves will not be the issue, however the implementation might be. I consider these instruments must be used and overseen by skilled Search engine optimization professionals who perceive the panorama of content material approaches that Google has grown extraordinarily subtle at penalizing and demoting over the previous 10+ years. The issue usually stems from a “set it and overlook it” strategy, or when the aim is to scale as many pages as shortly as attainable with out human evaluate.
Utilizing AI content material instruments for analysis, group, content material briefs, pulling in proprietary firm information and insights, and extra might be invaluable for dashing up the content material creation course of. However when articles are merely revealed “for Search engine optimization/GEO” with out consideration of the dangers concerned with search engine rating programs, the well-intentioned content material can truly backfire for each Search engine optimization and AI search.
To carry out properly, I like to recommend that any AI-assisted content material ought to nonetheless exhibit E-E-A-T, add authentic or distinctive data above and past what is obtainable by competing pages (data acquire), and take into account being clear about the usage of AI to create the content material (which is beneficial by Google).
The Backside Line
If there may be one takeaway from monitoring these 220+ websites over the previous a number of months, it’s that the playbooks being bought as “AI-first Search engine optimization” or “GEO-optimized content material at scale” look remarkably much like the playbooks that acquired websites flattened by the Useful Content material Replace and the March 2024 Core Replace. The packaging is new, however the sample shouldn’t be.
Throughout the dataset, the manufacturers nonetheless rising are typically those whose content material doesn’t match the eight templates above. Many manufacturers that scaled into these templates are those now eradicating pages, redirecting subfolders, and taking different steps to attempt to mitigate latest losses in visitors.
In case you’re at the moment evaluating an AI content material vendor, or working a program in-house, listed here are a couple of sensible questions I feel are value asking earlier than publishing one other web page:
- Does this web page truly exist as a result of an actual buyer or reader wants it, or as a result of a search engine or LLM may cite it?
- Might a competitor publish a near-identical model of this web page tomorrow utilizing the identical immediate?
- Would I be comfy if Google, a journalist, or my very own prospects noticed the complete checklist of URLs on this subfolder?
- Is the article inherently biased, and if that’s the case, is the web page clear with customers about these biases?
- Is there any first-party information, experience, or authentic perspective on this web page that isn’t out there on the primary ten outcomes already rating for the question?
None of this implies AI content material instruments are unusable. They are often genuinely helpful for analysis, briefs, inner information synthesis, and accelerating workflows the place a human skilled continues to be within the loop. The difficulty begins when the aim turns into quantity, or when the individuals closest to the content material cease reviewing what goes out the door.
The Search engine optimization trade has already lived via this cycle as soon as in the previous few years. The websites that got here out of it finest have been those that prioritized high quality, originality, and topical focus over scale. I anticipate the identical to be true of this cycle, and I’ll maintain monitoring the information because it performs out.
Extra Sources:
This put up was initially revealed on Lily Ray NYC Substack.
Featured Picture: Stokkete/Shutterstock
