Google may lose trust in sites over bulk-made pages
A Googler says Google can lose faith in a whole site built from piles of thin, template-made pages, and that recovery is slow. Plus, Google search now counts characters for you.
What changed
Google may lose trust in your whole site over bulk-made pages
Google's John Mueller told a site owner that Google's systems may have lost faith in their site, which was built with programmatic SEO (making many pages automatically from a template or database). He said each page had some value but the overall picture was not useful, and that fixing it takes time and significant effort, similar to recovering from a spam or core update (a broad change to how Google ranks sites). Our take: he is describing masses of template-generated pages with little real value, not individually written articles.
Programmatic SEO like this often leads to a site that's either spam, borderline spam, or low quality. It's easy to spin something up with many pages, it's hard to provide real value to users.
Resolving this tends to take time & significant effort to show the value.
Who this affects: Anyone whose site has a big batch of near-identical pages made from a template, such as a page for every term or search phrase.
- Our take: list any pages on your site that were generated in bulk from a template (same layout, one word or place name swapped). If a page does not give a real answer someone would want, improve it or remove it.
- Our take: keep publishing well researched, individually written articles. This warning is about thin pages made in bulk, not about writing regularly.
- If your traffic already dropped after building pages this way, expect a slow climb back. John Mueller says it takes time and significant effort.
Google now counts characters itself, so counter websites get skipped
Google's AI Overviews (the AI-written answer box at the top of search results) now include a character counter, so people can count text without leaving Google. Glenn Gabe sees it on desktop only, not on mobile. Several SEOs read it as Google building simple tools directly into search, which cuts out the sites that used to get that traffic.
Goodbye word count websites, Google AI Overviews added an interactive character counter tool
But only on desktop, not mobile. Interesting.
Who this affects: Sites whose main value is a simple tool or quick lookup, like a counter, converter or calculator.
- Our take: if a page on your site just does a simple calculation or lookup, search for it on Google and check whether the answer box now does the job itself.
- Our take: give those pages something an answer box cannot offer, such as your own examples, advice or a service people can buy.
Quick hits
ChatGPT's free version may now show sources up front
Glenn Gabe reports the free version of ChatGPT now lists sources by default under a plain Sources label, while his paid account still hides them behind a three-dot menu, and Barry Schwartz says he is not seeing it yet. Our take: if ChatGPT cites your site, more people could see and click your link, but this looks like a test for now.
One local SEO says fake opening hours could cost your listing
Colan Nielsen says Google is going after fake business hours and that inaccurate hours could get your listing removed. This is one SEO's post, so treat it as a nudge to keep your Google Business Profile (your free listing on Google Maps and Search) hours current.
Google is testing regular Search ads inside AI Mode
Barry Schwartz reports Google Ads confirmed a small experiment showing regular Search campaigns, including ones with restrictive match types (settings that limit which searches trigger your ad), inside AI Mode (Google's chat-style search). Our take: if you run Google Ads, some of your ads may start appearing there without you changing anything.