Google has said it plainly: it rewards helpful content however it was produced. The catch is that most AI content is unhelpful, because nobody who knows the business touched it.
What does Google say about AI-written content?
Google's guidance is that using AI is fine, and using any method to crank out pages mainly to manipulate rankings is spam. Its spam policies name scaled content abuse: lots of pages, little value, made for search engines instead of people. A tool did not break the rule. The pile of empty pages did.
Why does mass-produced AI content fail?
Because it says what every other page says. Ask a tool for "ten tips for choosing a roofer" and you get the same ten tips a thousand other sites published last month. Google has no reason to rank the thousand-and-first copy, and an assistant has nothing to quote from it.
Signs a page is filler:
- It could run on a competitor's site with the name swapped.
- No price, no place, no name, no number.
- It answers a question nobody asked, at length.
- Nobody at the company could defend a sentence of it on a phone call.
What works?
AI for the draft, a person for the substance.
- Start from a real buyer question, the kind you hear on the phone every week.
- Let the tool draft the structure and the plain-language first pass.
- The person who does the work edits it. They cut what is generic and add what only they know: what it costs here, how long it takes, what goes wrong, what they tell customers on the first call.
- Check every fact. AI tools invent numbers and sources with total confidence. One wrong price on a page costs more trust than the page earns.
- Publish under a real name with a way to reach that person.
That is how I write the answer pages on this site. A tool speeds up the draft. The prices, client names, and opinions are mine, and nothing goes up that I would not say to a buyer's face.
Why do AI assistants cite pages with specific facts?
An assistant writing an answer needs something to say that it cannot make up safely: a price, a step, a location, a named result. Pages that carry those facts give it a source to cite. Pages of general advice give it nothing it does not already have.
What does it cost to get this right?
A check-up is one hour for $150: I read your current pages the way Google and the assistants do and tell you which ones are filler and what is missing. Answer pages with a website start at $1,500. If your team will write its own pages with AI, a half-day workshop is $1,500 and covers how to draft, edit, and fact-check. Details are on the AI search page.
Answered by Jared Lukes, Minneapolis. Twenty-five years in brand, UX, and technology, currently holding fractional AI and technology seats at three companies. About Jared.