I nonetheless have loads of questions on how Google treats AI-generated content material.
On the one hand, Google says they don’t care whether or not AI is used for content material creation, so long as the content material isn’t designed “with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results.”
Automation has lengthy been utilized in publishing to create helpful content material. AI can help with and generate helpful content material in thrilling new methods.
However, individuals like Lily Ray and Glenn Gabe have shared many examples of so-called “mount AI” visitors graphs: web sites that scaled content material creation with AI, noticed a heroic spike in rankings and visitors… after which watched their natural efficiency tank a couple of months after publication.
An instance of a “Mount AI” visitors graph from Lily’s article.
Many entrepreneurs are actually unwilling to make use of generative AI in any capability for concern Google will punish them. However is Google punishing these web sites for utilizing AI content material? Or is their AI use incidental to the truth that they’re making spammy, scaled content material?
We got down to reply 4 questions that may shed some gentle on the subject:
- Are there any totally AI-generated pages in top-ranking positions?
- How widespread is AI-generated content material all through the highest 10?
- Does Google index content material with a really excessive chance of being AI?
- Does the natural efficiency of AI-generated content material tank inside a couple of months?
Based mostly on this analysis, I consider that Google just isn’t towards AI content material; it’s towards dangerous content material, however confusion arises as a result of AI content material and dangerous content material overlap a big quantity of the time.
- 5.3% of top-ranking (positions 1–3) pages are 100% AI-generated, and 9% are ≥80% AI content material—so totally AI-written pages can and do rank on the very high.
- Pages with underneath 50% AI content material account for 82.2% of top-3 rankings, that means closely AI-generated content material remains to be a minority on the high.
- Each place within the high 10 accommodates a significant share of closely AI-generated pages: between 8.4% (place 1) and 11.7% (place 10) of pages have ≥80% AI content material.
- Common AI content material degree rises solely barely from place 1 (27.1%) to place 10 (30.9%), and the median tells an analogous story, climbing from 17.1% to 19.5% over the identical vary.
- Indexation charge drops from 49.28% for low-AI-content pages to 40.35% for very-high-AI-content pages: a significant however removed from disqualifying hole.
- Even within the very-high-AI-content bucket, 40% of pages had been nonetheless listed, exhibiting no binary block on AI-generated content material getting into the index.
- Low and average AI-content pages acquired 2–3x the natural impressions of excessive or very-high AI-content pages, the starkest efficiency hole discovered within the research.
- Excessive and very-high AI-content pages confirmed related, secure impressions over time with no precipitous drop-off.
This analysis makes use of Ahrefs AI content material detector, which Ahrefs clients can use by way of Website Audit and the High pages and Web page examine reviews in Website Explorer.
AI content material ranges point out the estimated share of AI-generated textual content on the web page, starting from low (<20%) to very excessive (≥80%). For larger accuracy, AI detection solely triggers on pages at the least 350 phrases in size.
Importantly, AI content material detection just isn’t excellent, and the way in which we detect AI content material shall be totally different from how Google does (if it does).
In the identical approach that an LLM makes use of chance to generate textual content, AI detectors use chance to categorise it. One of these analysis is, in my view, the easiest way to make use of AI content material detection: taking a look at large-scale datasets and directional developments, and never fixating on particular person articles and their AI content material.
We analyzed 1,000,000 pages pulled from the highest 10 positions in 100,000 SERPs in June 2026. Round 300,000 of those pages had been accessible in our crawler database, of which 150,000 contained sufficient web page content material for AI detection.
We discovered that almost all of top-ranking pages are predominantly human-written. 54.7%—over half—have lower than 20% AI content material. Collectively, pages with underneath 50% AI content material account for 82.2% of top-3 rankings.
However though our knowledge means that increased AI use is correlated with decrease rating positions, it additionally means that it is attainable for totally AI-generated content material to rank in positions 1-3.
Totally or near-fully AI-generated pages are a small minority, however they actually exist on this pattern: 9% of top-ranking pages are ≥80% AI content material, and 5.3% are 100% AI-generated.
Right here’s how the info breaks out:
- 5.3% of top-ranking pages returned an AI content material degree of 100%.
- 9.0% of top-ranking pages returned an AI content material degree of ≥80%.
- 8.8% of top-ranking pages returned an AI content material degree of 50-80%.
- 27.5% of top-ranking pages returned an AI content material degree of 20-50%.
- 54.7% of top-ranking pages returned an AI content material degree of <20%.
However what about the remainder of the SERP?
Wanting on the distribution of AI-generated content material throughout the highest 10 positions, extremely AI-generated content material will get rarer as you progress increased within the SERP.
Place 1 has the very best share of low-AI-content pages and the bottom share of very-high-AI-content pages:
However there’s a light gradient: the prevalence of AI-generated content material will get regularly rarer shifting from place 10 to 1, in comparatively small increments.
Each rating place, together with place 1, nonetheless accommodates a significant share of closely AI-generated pages: between 8-12% containing ≥80% AI content material.
| Place | Very Excessive (≥80%) | Excessive (50-80%) | Average (20-50%) | Low (20%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8.4% | 8.1% | 27.5% | 55.9% |
| 2 | 9.0% | 8.8% | 27.6% | 54.6% |
| 3 | 9.6% | 9.5% | 27.4% | 53.5% |
| 4 | 9.8% | 10.0% | 26.9% | 53.3% |
| 5 | 10.0% | 10.1% | 26.9% | 53.0% |
| 6 | 10.7% | 10.2% | 26.5% | 52.6% |
| 7 | 10.2% | 10.1% | 27.7% | 52.0% |
| 8 | 11.1% | 9.8% | 28.0% | 51.0% |
| 9 | 11.3% | 10.2% | 28.1% | 50.3% |
| 10 | 11.7% | 9.5% | 27.7% | 51.1% |
We additionally calculated the common and median AI content material degree throughout a pattern of 15,000 pages for every place. It’s an analogous story: AI content material turns into extra widespread additional down the SERP, however nonetheless seems in increased positions:
| SERP Place | Common AI Content material Degree | Median AI Content material Degree |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 27.1% | 17.1% |
| 2 | 28.1% | 17.7% |
| 3 | 28.9% | 18.2% |
| 4 | 29.4% | 18.3% |
| 5 | 29.6% | 18.3% |
| 6 | 30.1% | 18.6% |
| 7 | 29.8% | 18.9% |
| 8 | 30.7% | 19.4% |
| 9 | 31.2% | 19.9% |
| 10 | 30.9% | 19.5% |
Analysing rating pages introduces a kind of choice bias: we’re solely evaluating profitable URLs that Google has already deemed match for indexing. However does AI use cut back the prospect of a URL being listed within the first place?
We appeared on the indexation charges for buckets of pages with totally different AI content material ranges. We sampled 1,000,000 pages from our crawler database, 1 web page per area. Round 100,000 pages contained sufficient content material for AI detection. We counted a web page as listed if it had any of the next traits:
- At the least one identifiable natural key phrase rating, or
- At the least one GSC impression since January 2026, or
- A precise URL hit for a Google website: search.
If we bucket pages by their estimated AI content material degree, we will see that increased AI content material ranges correlate with decrease indexation charges:
Right here’s how the info breaks out by bucket:
- Pages with low AI content material degree had an indexation charge of 49.28%
- Pages with average AI content material degree had a mean indexation charge of 43.38%
- Pages with excessive AI content material degree had a mean indexation charge of 40.72%
- Pages with very excessive AI content material degree had a mean indexation charge of 40.35%
Whereas the indexation charge is decrease for content material with excessive or very excessive AI content material ranges, a full 40% of those pages had been nonetheless listed—not one million miles away from the 49% indexation charge of low AI content material.
Lastly, we needed to see how the natural efficiency of AI-generated pages trended over time relative to non-AI-generated pages.
To do that, we used GSC knowledge from dwell URLs, matched these URLs with our crawler database, filtered out pages with too little textual content for AI detection, after which bucketed the URLs by their estimated AI content material degree. This left us with the next samples:
- Low AI content material degree: 28,643 pages
- Average AI content material degree: 23,498 pages
- Excessive AI content material degree: 12,911 pages
- Very Excessive AI content material degree: 15,809 pages
For every bucket, we used GSC knowledge to plot the change in impressions over time, beginning with one panel of internet sites from June 2025 to January 2026…
…and a second panel of internet sites from January 2026 to June 2026:
Natural efficiency is clearly influenced by many, many elements, and there are few concrete conclusions we will draw from this restricted time window, however I believed the info was attention-grabbing for a couple of causes:
- Usually, AI content material use appears negatively correlated with impressions.
- Low and average AI degree content material acquired 2–3x the impressions of excessive or very excessive AI-generated content material.
- Excessive and really excessive AI-generated content material each acquired related impressions throughout each samples.
- There aren’t any apparent precipitous drops in impressions for extremely AI-generated content material.
There are numerous the explanation why AI-generated content material may earn fewer impressions, so it might be incorrect to imagine that there’s any sort of computerized suppression taking place. Websites that lean closely on AI content material might are typically newer or lower-authority within the first place; inversely, websites with good natural efficiency could also be disincentivized to publish AI content material.
Probably, in my view, is that rising use of AI correlates with reducing content material high quality. I feel that is the important thing to understanding how Google treats AI content material.
All through this analysis, AI use appears to be correlated with decrease efficiency in search: decrease impressions, decrease rating place, and decrease indexation charge.
However this doesn’t inform the whole image. AI-generated content material is present in vital quantities in each rating place, together with the highest 1 to three. A major quantity of AI-generated content material is efficiently listed. Impressions to AI-generated content material remained comparatively secure over time.
There aren’t any apparent laborious cutoffs suggesting a binary AI classifier is stopping AI-generated pages from rating extremely or making it into the index. As a substitute, we see a gradual gradient: efficiency usually worsens with rising AI use… in all probability as a result of content material high quality usually worsens with rising AI use.
As I’ve said before, when corporations have interaction in an AI content material technique, they’re usually partaking in a technique that could be very totally different from conventional content material creation and search engine optimization—totally different and worse in some ways. Fundamental AI content material usually:
- Repeats widespread data with out including any new info to the SERP.
- Fails to incorporate inside and exterior hyperlinks, photographs, visible curiosity, and first-person experiences.
- Depends on tedious academic-style writing.
- Comprises apparent errors and inaccuracies.
These are all issues that might markedly worsen the natural efficiency of any piece of content material, however they’re particularly widespread in most AI-generated content material. As Dan Taylor defined in his nice SEJ article lately, publishing this content material at scale is the proper recipe to your very personal “Mount AI” scenario, as Google “burst-crawls” new low-quality, AI-generated pages however dumps them from the index quickly after:
Google may initially burst-crawl the brand new setup out of curiosity. However, if the area lacks the baseline authority to maintain that scale, Google will throttle its useful resource allocation. Simply because Google offers you the sources to index your pages initially, it doesn’t imply it is going to grant them to you indefinitely.
I don’t suppose Google is attempting to punish AI-generated content material; I feel it’s counting on the identical outdated hallmarks of content material high quality that it at all times has. It’s simply that AI-generated content material is normally decrease high quality than human-generated content material.
Crucially, these high quality issues generally co-occur with AI use, however they aren’t assured by AI use—as proven by the not-insignificant variety of listed and top-ranking AI-generated pages. I do know from firsthand expertise that it is rather attainable to create detailed, attention-grabbing, well-researched content material utilizing AI era—the caveat being that most individuals don’t. But.
I don’t consider entrepreneurs and SEOs must be afraid of AI content material creation—however they need to be afraid of spam and scaled content material.
