One Sunday, the owner of a carpentry workshop in Olot decides his website needs a blog. He asks an artificial intelligence tool for thirty articles about made-to-measure kitchens, wardrobes and renovations, and by that evening they're all published. They read well, there are no typos and each one ends with a contact button. Three months later they've brought in hardly any visits. What has come in is a customer asking about the “ten-year guarantee on all kitchens” that one of the articles promises. The workshop doesn't offer that guarantee: the tool wrote it. That sums up what happens to AI-generated content published without checking. Google doesn't punish it for being made with AI, but it has no reason to show it either, and whatever the text says, it's your name on it.
Does Google penalise AI-generated content?
Not for using AI as such. Google made that clear in 2023, in a post on its blog for site owners: appropriate use of AI or automation isn't against its guidelines. In the same post it adds a line worth remembering: using AI doesn't give content any special boost, because “it's just content”. If it's useful, original and reliable, it can rank. If it isn't, it won't, whether a person or a machine wrote it.
What does break the rules is using automation to manipulate results. In its guidance on using generative AI content, updated in October 2026, Google puts it like this: generative AI can be particularly useful for researching a topic and adding structure to original content, but generating many pages without adding value for readers may violate its spam policy.
Where the line is: lots of pages that add nothing
That policy has a name: scaled content abuse. In its spam policies, Google defines it as generating many pages mainly to manipulate rankings rather than help users, “no matter how it's created”. Its examples include using generative AI tools to produce lots of pages without adding value, stitching together bits of other websites, and automatically translating or swapping words for synonyms to multiply pages.
Notice that what gets punished is the intent and the result, not the tool. Thirty articles repeating what every other website already says are a problem even if a person wrote them. And three articles written with AI's help, checked and filled with your own business details, are just normal content.
One page per town with the name swapped
There's a temptation that AI has made very cheap: a page for every town in the area with the same text and the name changed. “Carpenter in Olot”, “Carpenter in Banyoles”, “Carpenter in Besalú”… Google calls these doorway pages, and one of its examples is exactly that: several pages aimed at specific towns that all funnel visitors to the same place.
A page per area makes sense when there's something different to say about each place: work you've done there, how to get there, opening hours, what people ask for in that area. If all that changes is the town's name, you're better off with one good general page that lists the areas you cover.
The mistake we see most: facts the AI makes up
This is the most immediate risk, and it has nothing to do with Google. The same guidance says it plainly: generative models don't look up facts, they predict the most likely next word, so what they write can contain inaccuracies, known as hallucinations. Google asks for all AI-generated content to be fact-checked by hand before it's published.
On a business website, hallucinations nearly always land in the same places:
- Prices that aren't yours, or that belonged to another company.
- Guarantees, timescales and terms you don't offer, like the Olot workshop's.
- Facts and figures with no source that sound right and don't exist.
- Regulations quoted wrongly or out of date.
- Services you don't provide, or areas you don't cover.
And the check doesn't stop at the text. Google extends it to what appears in search results: the page title, the description, the structured data and the alt text on images.
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Why a generic text won't rank (or get you cited by AI)
Even with no mistakes in it, an article that says the same as a hundred others has little chance. To write “five tips for choosing a kitchen”, the tool pieces together what's already published, and Google already has that on other pages.
The same goes for the search engine's AI summaries. In its guide to optimising for these features, Google advises creating your own content from what you know and not just repeating what others have already said online or what a generative AI model could easily produce. Its example of generic content is something like “7 tips for first-time home buyers”, and it holds up first-hand experience as what makes content useful. If your article is what any AI would write, it gives AI nothing it doesn't already have. How to work on getting AI tools to recommend you is in GEO: getting AI to recommend your business.
What only you can add
What sets an article apart is what isn't online yet:
- Your real prices, or at least the ranges you work in.
- The real timescales: how long a made-to-measure wardrobe takes in your workshop.
- Cases and photos of your own work.
- The questions customers ask you every week, answered the way you answer them.
- What you know about your area: what people ask for most, what goes wrong, what you recommend.
That's why a good article starts before the writing, with choosing what your customer is searching for. We explain it in how to choose keywords.
What AI is actually good for when writing for your website
Used sensibly, AI saves hours of work and there's no need to give it up. The uses that work best are the ones Google itself mentions, researching and organising:
- Gathering ideas and the usual questions about a topic.
- Structuring an outline: what goes first, which sections are missing.
- Producing a first draft that you then rewrite with your own details.
- Proofreading for spelling, long sentences or anything unclear.
- Helping with translation into another language, as long as someone who speaks it checks the result. If your website is in Catalan and Spanish, how to organise it is in website in Catalan and Spanish.
The order matters: what you know comes first, then the tool, and finally a person who reads the whole thing before it goes live. That way, AI-generated content saves you the heavy lifting and what gets published is still yours.
How to check AI-generated content before publishing it
- Check every fact: prices, timescales, figures, names and rules. If you can't verify it, take it out.
- Add your own material: a case, a photo, a figure from your business, an opinion someone could disagree with.
- Cut the padding: introductions that say nothing, phrases like “in today's world”, summaries that repeat what came before.
- Read it out loud. If it doesn't sound like you talking to a customer, rewrite it.
- Check what isn't obvious at first glance: the title, the description, the alt text on photos and the links.
- Be sensible about length. Google says it has no preferred word count. An article should be as long as it needs to be to answer well, no more and no less.
Do you have to disclose AI-generated content?
According to Google, disclosing AI use is helpful for content where someone might wonder “how was this made?”, and it recommends doing so where reasonable. For an article that a person has checked and rewritten with your own business details, it usually isn't necessary.
There's a legal side too. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which applies from 2 August 2026, requires disclosure when AI-generated text is published to inform the public on matters of public interest. The obligation doesn't apply if the text has gone through human review or editorial control and someone holds editorial responsibility for it. A business blog isn't usually in that situation, but if you write about matters of public interest, check. We're not lawyers, and every case has its own details.
A byline from a real person
Google recommends adding a byline where readers might wonder who wrote something, and warns that inventing authors with AI-generated portraits, made-up names or fake credentials is deceptive and makes the page less trustworthy. A real byline, with a profile saying who the person is and what they do, helps. We cover it in the “About us” page.
Five signs of AI-generated content published without checking
- It opens with “in today's world” or a line that could start any article.
- There isn't a single figure, name or example from the business publishing it.
- Everything comes in threes: three adjectives, three benefits, three tips.
- It promises things nobody asked for, like guarantees, discounts or services that don't exist.
- It ends with a conclusion that repeats what came before in different words.
If your blog has several of these, there's no need to delete everything. Often it's enough to rewrite the articles that get the most visits and remove the ones that add nothing. When a blog is worth it and when it isn't is in is a business blog worth it.
What it costs to have us write your website's articles
We write the website articles ourselves. We use tools for research and organising, but the text is checked and adjusted by hand, in your way of speaking and with your business details, and before we start we send you the list of topics to approve. They come with the plans published on our pricing page:
- Your Website, €200 a month: the website with up to ten subpages, hosting, two mailboxes and one article a month.
- Basic Presence, €400 a month: three articles a month on your website and three on your Google Business Profile, plus visibility in AI answers.
- Mid and Advanced Presence, €750 and €1,500 a month: five or seven articles a month on the website and as many on the profile, with ad campaign management.
All prices exclude VAT and there's no minimum contract: it's billed month by month and thirty days' notice is enough to stop.
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We'll tell you what we'd change in your texts
We're three partners working from the Palau Firal in Sant Antoni de Calonge, next to Palamós, with businesses across the provinces of Girona and Barcelona.
If your website or blog has AI-written texts and you're not sure whether they help or hurt, send us the address on WhatsApp. We'll read them and tell you which ones we'd rewrite, which we'd remove and what details they're missing, with no commitment. If you prefer, write to us through the contact form.
Tell us what you need and we'll give you a price
We reply the same day. No commitment, no sales pitch.