Hey folks,
Elliot here.
Yet another Google spam update dropped at the end of September, and there is rumored to be an even bigger one just around the corner focused on penalizing scaled AI content:
Why should you care?
Because the consequences of being on Google’s bad side can be massive. If Google starts penalizing your content, you lose your rankings, traffic, and any hope of getting leads in through content.
If this does happen, it’s typically recoverable, but it can be a long road and will undoubtedly impact your bottom line (if content is a source of leads for you).
The goal of this newsletter is not to scare you, but to cut through the jargon and spell out what you need to know about these updates in plain English, and how to safeguard your content.
How does Google view AI use right now?
Right now, Google doesn’t have any beef with using AI to help with content in principle. As far as I’m aware, there's no detector picking up on too many em dashes, how everything suddenly seems to be done ‘quietly’, and so on.
Google’s guidelines explicitly look for ‘helpful content created for people.’ What Google tries to prevent flooding the search results is low-quality, generic content.
It just so happens that a lot of AI generated content fits that bill. Without carefully feeding it original information, it will always be inherently generic because it just pulls information from existing sources. There is no originality or uniqueness that adds value to the SERPs.
Because AI has made it so easy to create generic content, many brands have gone hard, going from 4 blogs a month to 50, all using the same formulaic structure.
Google has already started tackling this, with the so-called Mount AI phenomenon: where traffic starts strong, and then quickly bombs hard as the algorithm realizes the content is poor quality.
Here’s an example of what that looks like:
Is Google preparing another crackdown on low-quality AI content?
We've already seen Google take action against mass-produced, low-quality content. So what might be coming next?
SEO expert Lily Ray recently highlighted a few warning signs that a bigger crackdown is coming in her latest Substack post:
- Google has updated its guidelines. It now says it's “critical” to manually fact-check and review AI-generated content before publishing. Lily points out that similar changes to Google's guidance have preceded major updates in the past.
- It's spelling out what low-quality content looks like. Google says producing large amounts of AI-generated text without human oversight or review represents “little to no effort”.
- Google is cracking down on spam more frequently. It's released four spam updates in 2026, compared with just one in 2025.
None of this confirms another major update is coming. But Lily believes these are signs that Google could be preparing to take tougher action against mass-produced, low-quality content.
How to avoid Google's wrath: improve AI content or remove it
If you've been using AI heavily to increase your content volume, your number one priority should be identifying and fixing anything Google might consider spammy or low quality.
Here's how I'd approach it:
1. Find and clean up any low quality AI content: identify it, then improve or remove
Start by looking at any content you've published at scale using AI.
In particular, look for:
- Mass-produced articles following the same template. For example, 30 'best software for X industry' listicles where the advice, recommendations and structure are almost identical, with a few words swapped around.
- Listicles are effective, but they must add value. Do they actually go into detail about ‘X’ industry, or is it just the same article repeating over and over again? Do you give your competitors a fair shake, or do you just rank yourself number 1, and as the ‘best’ solution?
You can read more about how to create useful listicles here: Are self-promotional listicles ruining your SEO?
- Generic explainer blogs that add nothing new. Think 'What is X?' or 'How does X work?' articles that were written with AI and just repeat what's already available on Google. If they're getting no relevant traffic, aren't helping customers and offer nothing original, I'd question whether they're worth keeping.
- AI-generated content that's barely been reviewed. If you've been publishing articles straight from ChatGPT with a few light edits, I'd check them thoroughly. Look for invented statistics, incorrect advice, repetitive filler and confident-sounding explanations that don't actually tell readers anything useful.
Once you've identified the problem pages, you have two options:
- Improve articles that could be genuinely useful with better information, examples or expertise. It may also make sense to combine articles that cover essentially the same thing into one stronger resource.
- Remove pages that offer little value and aren't worth fixing.
2. Keep Google's four quality guidelines in mind when improving and creating content
Google highlights four signs of quality content: effort, originality, talent/skill, and accuracy.
Here are a few practical ways to demonstrate each one within your content:
How we helped a fintech recover its leads after a Google update
Even if you're publishing high-quality content, Google updates can still require you to make a few tweaks.
We experienced this firsthand with one of our payments clients earlier this year. We'd helped them go from zero to 30+ inbound leads a month, but following Google's May Core Update, their leads suddenly dropped by 30%. Not ideal when each lead is potentially worth over $100k!
We investigated what had happened and it turned out that some of their highest-converting articles, particularly competitor comparisons and listicles, had lost rankings. And because Google and AI search visibility are closely linked, this affected leads from both channels.
Over four weeks, we updated our highest-priority articles, adding more expert insights, useful examples and practical advice. We also made comparisons more balanced, improved formatting and had human writers handle all the rewrites.
By mid-June, rankings and leads had recovered. By July, the client had hit a new high in monthly leads, with blog traffic also reaching record levels.
Even good content can take a hit after a Google update. But having genuinely useful, original content gives you a much stronger foundation to recover from, rather than having to fix hundreds of generic AI-generated articles.
Content shortcuts aren’t worth it: quality is more important than quantity
AI has made it incredibly easy to publish more content. But more content doesn't automatically mean more traffic, and it certainly doesn't mean better content.
With Google increasingly focused on tackling mass-produced, low-quality pages, publishing dozens of generic AI blogs could end up doing more harm than good.
Plus, generic content just isn’t good for your readers. If your blog page is full of AI blogs, what kind of message does this send to your prospect? That quality isn’t important? If you don’t put effort into your content marketing, what about your product?
It’s far better to publish five genuinely useful articles a month than 50 that add nothing new.
Mint Studios Recommended Reads
- Prediction: the next massive Google update is around the corner: A great article by Lily Ray, making the case for another major Google update being on the horizon.
- Are self-promotional listicles ruining your SEO?: A previous newsletter where we talk about how to make sure your listicles are good quality.
- Google’s August 2026 Spam Update – Scaled Content Abuse, AI Content, Programmatic Content, Thin Affiliates, And More: A useful article that looks at websites hit by Google's August spam update, including examples of scaled AI content and the consequences of it.
Thanks for reading,
Elliot & the Mint team 🎉
We help financial services and fintech companies turn content into measurable pipeline. Learn more about what we do.
