Google can lose faith in sites full of bulk pages
Google says sites that mass-produce pages can lose its trust for a long time, and a week of SEO argument landed on the same point: shortcuts are getting cheaper to buy and easier for Google to spot.
What changed
Bulk-generated pages can cost you Google's trust for months
A Google staffer said sites that spin up pages in bulk from a template or a database can make Google's systems "lose faith" in the whole site, and getting that trust back takes a long time. This lines up with Glenn Gabe's breakdown of the August spam update, where the sites hit hardest were publishing template pages and AI text at volume. One SEO also posted a Search Console screenshot of a "Scaled content abuse" manual action, which is a human penalty from Google's spam team.
It's easy to spin something up with many pages, it's hard to provide real value to users. Our systems have possibly lost faith in your site providing good value to users based on the old pages.
looks like it crashed (more than before) with the recent Google spam update.
Who this affects: Anyone who has published, or is thinking about publishing, lots of similar pages from a spreadsheet, a database or an AI tool.
- Stop adding bulk template pages that do not say anything a visitor could not get elsewhere.
- Open Search Console, click Manual actions, and check for anything mentioning scaled content.
- Our take: if you already published hundreds of thin pages, delete or merge them and expect months, not weeks, before traffic recovers.
Google is building simple free tools into its answers
Google added a working character counter inside AI Overviews, the AI answer box at the top of search results. You type text into Google and get the count without visiting anyone's site. Glenn Gabe says he only sees it on desktop, not mobile, so far.
If you run a character count tool, a huge heads-up...
Goodbye word count websites, Google AI Overviews added an interactive character counter tool
Who this affects: Anyone whose traffic comes from a small free tool page, like a counter, converter or calculator.
- Our take: open Search Console, sort your pages by clicks, and see whether your tool page is a big share of your traffic.
- Our take: if it is, give that page something the box in Google cannot do, like saving results, bulk input or export.
Google's new AI search model briefly stopped linking to sites
Google switched a new Gemini model into AI Mode, the chat style version of search, on September 2. For about a day its answers came back with almost no links or citations to websites. Google said that was not intended, and Glenn Gabe confirmed links were back by Friday morning.
This isn't working as intended, and we鈥檒l roll out a fix soon.
The AI answers do better at meeting user needs, meaning less need for clicks to websites.
Who this affects: Everyone with a website that gets traffic from Google.
- Do nothing, Google already fixed it.
- Our take: if you saw a dip in clicks around September 2 to 4, check the dates in Search Console before you go changing your site.
Worth watching
AI answers may start ignoring brands that plant their own praise
One SEO showed ChatGPT flagging "inauthentic mentions" inside list style content, meaning mentions of a brand that look planted rather than earned, and then skipping the brand that recommended itself. Lily Ray says she saw a similar pattern in Google results. Nobody has confirmed how widely this is running yet.
ChatGPT has started adding notes about "inauthentic mentions" in list-format content.
I fully believe we will see a Penguin-like event targeting "inauthentic mentions" this year.
Who this affects: Anyone paying for brand mentions, sponsored "best of" lists or self written roundups to look popular in AI answers.
- Do not buy bulk brand mentions or pay for listicles that rank you first.
- Our take: put the same budget into getting one real customer story or one real press mention.
Things to do
Cheap bulk backlinks can quietly sink your site
A new tool lets you buy backlinks, meaning links from other sites to yours, for a few dollars each from a shared pool of sites. Marie Haynes, who has cleaned up penalised sites for years, says Google scores pages for spam and looks for patterns rather than single links, so buyers usually see a slow decline instead of one dramatic drop. Nathan Gotch and Connor Showler said the same thing in their own posts this week.
If your site matters to you, I urge you not to buy links.
At best: the links will do nothing and Google will simply ignore them.
Who this affects: Anyone tempted by a service promising lots of backlinks for very little money.
- Do not buy links from bulk marketplaces or link exchanges.
- Build an email list and one non-search traffic source so your business does not depend on Google.
- Our take: if you already bought a batch, stop now rather than adding more on top.
Quick hits
Most sites should leave the disavow tool alone
Google's John Mueller said the disavow tool, which tells Google to ignore certain links pointing at your site, "does have effects". Glenn Gabe's reply was blunt: unless you bought links or have a penalty for them, step away from the tool, because he has helped clients undo disavow files that never should have existed.
Your ranking now changes from one search to the next
An analysis of 8.16 million search screenshots found organic rankings became 48.7% more volatile after Google's May core update, with mobile local searches shifting most. That means checking your rank once from your own desk tells you very little.
Google may let you verify a business with a photo
Google is testing a new way to verify a Google Business Profile, the free listing that shows your business on Maps and in local results: submit a business photo instead of waiting on a postcard or a video call. It has only been spotted in a few accounts so far, so it may not appear for you yet.