Yes, Google does scan websites specifically to understand if content is generated by artificial intelligence. And so does Bing. If you are creating content purely to rank rather than to help real people, both search engines have systems in place to catch it. Here is what you need to know.
Google says on its own website that they reward high quality content and that they have always used systems and believe in the power of AI and how it helps them deliver relevant information to users who are searching.
So they have used AI for a long time since they have many systems in general for search.
They do say on their website though that
there were concerns about the rise in mass produced content that was not human generated.
They thought it was not fair to ban all content as an automated thing, but instead it made more sense to reward human quality content that is engaging and useful.
Today, Google's system continues to use ranking systems designed to surface websites and pages where there is reliable information, using their helpful content system guidelines.
The helpful content system guidelines were designed because Google really wants people to create content for humans, not just for search engine rankings, as there are a lot of people trying to hack how to rank in search engines.
They even say on their website that using automation including AI to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating search engine rankings is a violation of their spam policy.
Google has a SpamBrain system which was actually launched many years ago in 2018. It is a system where they identify spammy sites, reduce hacker spam, and more recently they are looking at sites that do not allow you to click back to search results.
You have probably experienced this before. You are on a website or shopping for something and you cannot click back to the search results and you are forced to stay. Google is looking at ways to penalise these sites because it is taking advantage of customers.
You might be thinking: what percentage of AI content am I able to have on my website? The answer is we do not know. Google says they have been tracking poor quality content created by humans, automation, and AI for years. They have systems that determine this and they do know there is an appropriate use of AI automation. It is not against the guidelines, but it should not be the primary source used to manipulate search rankings.
If you are thinking will AI content rank on Google search, the answer is not really anymore. Using AI automation to create content fast, despite what many SEO gurus might have claimed, you might get that sharp peak for a few days or weeks and then you will see a huge drop from being penalised.
It is honestly not worth it. You will not get any special gains out of trying to game the system and search engine rankings.
There are a few ways Google does this. Using their advanced algorithm and SpamBrain system, they have sophisticated rules and a signals system where they identify and downrank low quality spammy content, even if it is human generated. Bad quality is bad quality.
Google looks for patterns when somebody lands on your website. They will see if they bounce, they will see how often the content is edited, they will look at the content itself. All of these signals add up and Google can tell if a page was created purely for search engine purposes.
Google looks at the E-E-A-T guidelines, Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. If you do not have depth, accuracy, or a reliable quality page, you will get marked as a low quality site.
Somebody that is pumping out lots of pages at once, well it is going to be obvious that does not seem right. This is going to be scanned for AI content and even if it is human written, it is still spam and can be penalised. Spammy is spammy, regardless of who or what wrote it.
No backlinks to your pages is not a huge one, and a lot of people have a lot of pages so you are not always going to have backlinks to every single page. But it could be a signal that Google looks at when assessing whether your content is relevant and valued. You can read more about building quality backlinks here.
If you are doing clickbait stuff with your meta description and meta title then Google is going to see that you are not relating your content to the actual topic and people are just bouncing off the page. That is also a form of spam.
You might have seen something about Google BERT, which is an AI language model that Google applies to search results. It is a super complex model used for natural language processing. It learns bidirectional representations of text to improve the context and understanding of text across many different tasks.
In plain English, it helps Google understand what your content actually means, not just what keywords it contains.
Bylines are the "who wrote this" section on a piece of content. We know this is quite important to have, especially now that authors are getting pulled into AI Overviews and AI-generated answers, but only where it is reasonable to expect it.
Google does say it is not the best approach to just put a byline in as a way of trying to rank your content. It should really be obvious and genuine from the start.
It is actually expected that people are going to think: how was this created? Was this infographic real? Was this imagery generated? It is worth putting it in where reasonable that you did create something with AI, because you are more trustworthy for just saying it. If something is really obvious and you do not disclose it, that works against you.
Bing gets less attention in this conversation but it is worth knowing where they stand. Bing allows AI-generated content on websites as long as it meets their quality and originality standards, and like Google, they have been open about using user signals for years. If someone bounces off your page, Bing sees it too.
What is interesting is that Bing is increasingly focused on how content performs in AI search, not just traditional search results. Bing Webmaster Tools recently launched an AI Performance dashboard showing where and how content from your site is referenced as a source across AI experiences, not just blue links. In June 2025 alone, AI-driven referrals to websites jumped 357% compared to the previous year.
Bing calls this Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), and it is a signal that both search engines are moving towards rewarding content that works well for AI-generated answers, not just page rankings.
If you do not want your content to be flagged as AI, here are the guidelines we suggest.
The core message from Google has not changed. Create content for your audience, not for search engines. If you do that, you are already ahead of the people trying to game the system.
Further reading:
If you visited your own website and were greeted by a warning, it's easy to assume something has gone wrong. Maybe your web developer mentioned installing an SSL certificate, or you've noticed your website still starts with HTTP instead of HTTPS like many business owners, you may be doubting whether it's something you need to […]
Many business owners question whether digital marketing is worth spending their budget on. A deeper look at how much time people spend online makes that question much easier to answer. The typical person now spends around 6 hours and 38 minutes on the internet every day. In Australia, that number is even higher. According to […]
Six weeks of football is generating one of the more useful case studies in search behaviour we’ve seen in years. Keyword demand spiking in real time. Brands fighting for visibility that money alone can’t buy. A live look at how Google Business Profile handles a global event as it unfolds. According to Forbes, Sistrix data […]
