The term “AI slop” was named Word of the Year in 2025 by Merriam-Webster, and for good reason. Across blog articles, landing pages, and even LinkedIn, there’s a clear trend toward AI-generated content that feels surface-level and repetitive, not to mention lacking a unique perspective. AI tools make it easier than ever to produce content quickly, but this speed doesn’t guarantee visibility in search results.
Search engines like Google still prioritise ranking signals such as expertise, experience, authority and trust (E-E-A-T), backlinks and high-quality content. When those elements are missing, content may not rank well. There’s also a risk tied to how search engines evaluate content quality at scale. Systems like Google’s SpamBrain are designed to identify low-value, manipulative content patterns. If AI is used without human oversight, content can more easily fall into the spam category, especially when it lacks originality or clear intent.
AI Content Does Rank, But That’s Not the Full Picture
AI-generated content can and does still appear in search results. Pages created with AI are still indexed, and they can rank for keywords. In some cases, these pages gain traction quickly, especially when they align with search demand and cover a topic clearly. This initial visibility can be useful as it can:
- Help populate a site with fresh content
- Signal that a website is active and regularly updated
- Capture early traffic for specific queries.
However, rankings aren’t static. Over time, search engines continue to evaluate how helpful and relevant a page is. Content that lacks insight, originality or human perspective may begin to lose visibility as stronger alternatives emerge. Search engines are also getting better at interpreting how useful content is. AI content is often generated based on existing information, which can result in outputs that mirror what’s already out there with no clear originality. Without human input, it can miss context, nuance or practical expertise. Common gaps include:
- Lack of originality – Content may repeat what already exists without adding anything new.
- Limited expertise – There’s no direct experience or informed opinion behind the writing.
- Weak authority signals – No clear author, perspective or point of view.
- Generic structure – Similar phrasing, formatting and explanations across multiple sources.
These factors don’t always prevent content from ranking initially, but they can affect how long it stays visible. Google’s own guidance reinforces this. Content created primarily to manipulate rankings rather than to help users violates its quality standards. In serious cases, this can lead to manual actions that are difficult to recover from.
Where AI Can Still Add Value and Why You Still Need a Strategy
AI can support content creation by speeding up research and outlines, generating initial drafts to build from, identifying gaps or supporting topics and helping maintain consistency across larger content batches. The key difference is human oversight. Content that performs well tends to combine AI efficiency with human input, adding context and experience. This is where quality signals are vital. We like to think of it as an 80-20 rule, where AI can speed up a task by covering 80% of the groundwork, but 20% of valuable, human input is always required. High-quality content still needs:
- Clear intent and relevance to the user
- Original insight or perspective
- Structured, easy-to-follow formatting
- Alignment with a broader SEO and content strategy.
Content performance is shaped by how everything works together. Without a clear strategy, AI-generated content can become fragmented or inconsistent. Topics may overlap, messaging may drift, and quality can vary from page to page. This can lead search engines to interpret a brand’s site as an unreliable source of information, which can affect both rankings and citations in AI overviews.
A more structured approach tends to be more effective. This includes defining clear topic areas and priorities, maintaining consistency in tone and intent, regularly reviewing and updating existing content and combining AI support with human editing and refinement. This will ensure that your content ranks and continues to perform well over time.
The real targets for Google and other search providers are the large-scale, programatically generated sites that are producing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pages and articles. These sites have virtually no human oversight, and content quality varies widely. Reports have shown these sites can quickly gain traction, but only hold their positions temporarily as algorithms root out these spammy practices.
The Final Word
Spend any time on the web these days, and you’ll see the impact AI-generated content is having. It’s changed how content is created, but it hasn’t changed what makes it valuable and how it’s perceived by search engines. Visibility in search results still depends on relevance and credibility. AI can support the process, but it works far better when combined with human input and a clear strategy.
If you’re using AI as part of your content approach and want to check how it aligns with your search performance, please get in touch!