Transcription
Or PR Singh, welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having me back. Looking forward to this one.
You said on LinkedIn, I'm just going to read this. Uh, you said Google is nuking low-effort AI-generated content. A common misconception in SEO is that more pages equals better SEO, or now better go, or AEO. This isn't always the case. The last time this website's traffic, and you're sharing Shopify, the last time Shopify's traffic was at this level was in January 2022. Since January 2022, they've seen a 221% increase in organic pages, that's an extra 3,000 pages in real terms. If you drill down to pages with forward slash best forward slash in the URL, so I guess it's a best subfolder, the decline is even more brutal. Now, I'm sure a company worth billions of dollars can probably absorb this loss. But for many companies out there that depend on organic revenue, that might not be the case. Anyway, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
All right, this was a great post. Uh, what's going on? Like, what is what is happening? So, in the over the past few weeks, um, Google's been um actively um making the blog subfolders of a lot of big websites decline. And something they have in common, well, they have two things in common. One thing is that they've published a lot of pages over the last like two to three years. And by a lot, I mean in the thousands. And the second thing they have in common is that they have um best in the URL. So, for some sites, it's like a subfolder where they have like best articles within a subfolder. For others, for Shopify, it's actually they just have best in the URL and it's a way to see how traffic is um declining as you can see in the screenshot. So I think um and the third thing, sorry, they have in common is that the content looks AI-generated. So we can't make claims that, hey, this website has definitely used AI to make the content, but when you go through their blog or you go through their content and you see certain signs that are common with AI, and then you see the volume that they've been able to publish, you can kind of put two and two together.
Now um Lily Ray has also spoken about listicles being hit. So I feel like in this case, when Shopify's um best articles are going down, they're just a part of that system where, you know, brands have been making listicles on their website. They put themselves in the first position and then they um then they um then they see decreases. The reason I said, "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should," is because a lot of people out there, small business owners, medium-sized business owners, they look at what really big companies are doing and they want to replicate what they're doing. So if they think, "Hey, if they're doing something and it's working for them," which, let's be real, for a lot of big sites, they think they can get away with publishing mass amounts of content because of stuff like their domain authority and just how powerful they are, it works for them for a while. But if a small business does it, they're going to get hit much faster than a bigger business. And in the long run, you know, it's not gonna it's not going to work out for them. So that's why I say in SEO, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Sometimes you need to uh just uh control control the AI use and the volume of publishing.
So something that I see is that a lot of people are confused about what like low-effort AI-generated content even looks like. Like, what is that? Like, what does that mean? Cuz people are maybe some people are using AI to write stuff on their sites and does that mean like all AI is bad? Like >> No, I I definitely not would not say all AI is bad. So I'm going to give some examples. Um, and actually, I have in the past if uh people follow me on over on X and even on LinkedIn. So starting uh starting an article with "in the ever-evolving world of finance" or "in the ever-evolving world of drop shipping" or um "in the fast-paced world" and like generic filler content like that.
Now um one article I recommend uh, you know, listeners to read is Wikipedia's "Signs of AI." So it's not 100% it's not fully accurate, but there's some good like nuggets in there. >> Yeah. Yeah, Wikipedia "Signs of AI." I will pull it up. So, Wikipedia, "Science of AI writing." So, it's this one. There's some really good nuggets in here around what AI content looks like. And sometimes, and they they highlight certain um, they highlight certain points. Um, sometimes, for example, AI will writing threes. Um, sometimes it will say stuff like, "it's not X, it's Y," or "it's not about this, it's about this." So there's certain patterns that you just become so obvious when you do this job like day in day out, like certain patterns become obvious to me. But for listeners out there who might not have that experience, the first place you should go to is Wikipedia "Signs of AI writing." And, you know, off-topic, but a recommendation is, if you're going to use AI content, if you're going to use ChatGPT to write content, why don't you just download this um, why don't you just download this webpage, upload it to ChatGPT, and then, you know, enter your prompts and see what type of content content you get. But yeah, I recommend listeners to check out uh Wikipedia "Signs of AI writing." There's loads more articles online if you just Google "what does AI writing sound like?" But I feel like this is a good starting point for um for listeners.
>> So wait, you download this, you what do you, you put it as like a project file or like >> Yeah, you can put it as a project. You can you can put it as a project file. You can make a custom GPT as well. Um, so yeah, you just have to play around. You say like, avoid, you say avoid this. >> Yeah. So, you know, I got I've got stuff on my ChatGPT where it's I have different projects, but yeah, with this um, just download it, upload it to ChatGPT, and then you got to add some of the additional instructions like, "avoid common um, avoid common terms of AI output." Um, but yeah, if you just upload this to ChatGPT, I think that itself does a good job. But then if you want to get more advanced, you're going to have to add in extra stuff like, "avoid the the ever-evolving," "avoid," and "the fast-fast moving," and um, stuff like that.
This method of marketing is so effective I had to make sure it wasn't against Google's rules before I kept doing it. It's a form of SEO I call compact keywords. Whereas most SEO focuses on putting up articles to answer questions, how, what, when, compact keywords focuses on putting up dozens of pages that sell to searchers who are actually looking to buy. These pages rank on Google and convert so much better than normal that when I discovered this years ago, I couldn't believe this was allowed. It's less work, too. The average compact keywords page is only 415 words. Compact Keywords is a 13-hour deep course on getting sales with SEO. A customer recently said, "Each lesson is dense with information. You're giving years' worth of experience boiled down into 15 to 30 minute lessons with no filler or fluff. I feel like I'm gaining a new superpower." Compact Keywords is about setting up an SEO funnel that brings you sales for years and years and years. It works with AI. It's less work than traditional SEO and it makes way more money. You can get it now at compactkeywords.com. Back to the podcast.
So, low-effort AI-generated content. And you said you had some examples.
Yeah. So, um, before I show everyone the examples, I wanted to um show them this screen.
Great. All right. So, we're looking at we're looking at Shopify's Shopify's organic traffic right now in SE in Hrefs. Sorry.
Hrefs. And just to be clear, I don't like calling out big websites, but you sometimes you have to do this because like I said, I know business owners that look at what these big companies are doing and then they want to do the same thing. And then you got to explain to them, hey, this is not a good idea for you to do. So, what I want to show people here is um their organic traffic um organic keywords are kind of declining. So, this is for the whole domain, but if we segment it to the blog, we'll actually see a more dramatic um decrease. But I also want you to see ChatGPT and AI overviews. They are also going down. There's a common myth in um SEO right now that the more pages you publish for query for to target query fanout queries um you need to publish content for every type of ICP, you need to publish content for every type of customer. That is not the case because once you get hit by a Google algorithmic update, it's going to affect your uh visibility downstream in ChatGPT because ChatGPT uses an API to provide live search results. And guess what search engine they use to um to deliver search results? And then AI overviews is just speaks for itself. If your regular SEO is bad and you're seeing declines in regular SEO, you're also going to see declines in Google's AI overviews. So, it's not always um, you know, just getting a getting hit by a Google algorithmic action doesn't just affect your regular SEO. Now, it's also going to affect your visibility in AI um in AI tools.
I think a lot of uh a lot of site owners think that they need to try to rank for like every keyword because they don't really realize actually how much like what they will get by just ranking number one with high-converting pages for even just a couple of keywords. Like they don't realize just how good that will be. Like in a lot of cases, they could rank for just a couple of keywords and have more business than they know what to do with. They don't. And then they scale then they scale their domain authority and because they have more domain authority, they can now they can rank for a lot more keywords, but like they don't even realize yet.
Yeah, exactly. That's what it is. And I like to use um local businesses and as an example. So there's so many local businesses around the world. They don't have huge websites. They have small websites, but their homepage ranks for all of their main keywords. Now, they didn't go out there and build like separate um solution pages or service pages. Their homepage might be ranking for "plumber in Toronto" or like "plumber in um plumber in Frank Vancouver." Once they start getting the links because their business is down has been around for a while, then they can start building additional pages. So yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I think people just end up building too many pages and um, you know, sometimes it works for them, sometimes it sometimes it doesn't, but um, yeah, 100%.
But even even when it works for them and they they scale up too fast, it's still dangerous. They could still get hit down the line.
Yeah. And you know, and my question is, what are you doing with this traffic? So this is uh Shopify's blog. So obviously something went on in uh in July. But you know, ignoring this spike in July, just look at the um downward trend from 2024. So from the end of 2024, look at the volume of pages. So, you know, and this is just ah, so it's not going to be 100% accurate, but it's a good um indicator of what's going on. So 3,600 to you know, 4,100, that's a big that's a big increase. When you go back to 2022, 2023, they've added thousands of pages, right?
So for people who are listening, cuz if yeah, you know, we're show we're showing your screen, but if if anyone's just listening, you we're seeing that that pages are going up while organic traffic is going down, like, and it's very clear.
Yeah. And you know, my question is, we know we were just talking about keywords. What are you doing with this page? So, let's just take this one. So, I've not looked at this page before, but >> Shopify, he's going after mot. Oh, look at this AI. Oh my gosh. You can even tell right away with the with the featured image.
Yeah. So, I'm zooming in for everybody, right? "200+ Motivational Quotes for Success and Daily Inspiration 2026." Last updated December 5, 2025. Yeah. AI-generated image. Um, what is what is the point of Shopify ranking for this page and with the big M dashes, you know? Okay, so here we say obvious signs of AI. So, of course, people use the M dash before the like before AI, but um, yeah, it's just become more commonplace now. So, they've got the big they got the big dashes. Um, like there's nothing really going on here that adds value to a user. And this is what they're trying to SEO like "motivational quotes for men," "motivational quotes for women," "motivational quotes for students," like, what's what are they trying to achieve by ranking for this page? So, I, you know, for our listeners, when you're doing SEO, what are you creating the page for? And who are you creating the page for? Like, what's the goal of Shopify here? Is someone going to land on this page and be motivated and then start a free trial? I think that's what they're trying to say, but from an SEO and business point of view, um, you know, I don't know how how um productive this page has been to >> show some of their best pages.
Yeah. So, let's go into the best pages. So, I'm going to um add a filter and do best. So, "The Best Affiliate Program." So, this is going to be a good one. Oh my gosh.
So, let's see what's going on here. So, okay. One thing I do like about them is that they've added a video for each um for their um from their YouTube channel into the video into their articles. But I do I do I do like that baby go. So, this is what we mean by best. So, Shopify obviously wants to rank for the best affiliate programs and in this case, the um they list themselves as number one as having the best affiliate marketing program. So this is the common SEO GEO tactic of uh 2026. So you can see here they list how many, they list 50 affiliate programs and number one here is Shopify. This is what they do. This is what the affiliate program does and then the details. But this is what we mean about AI-generated content. So if you've ever asked AI for a list, this is the exact format. It gives you a list. It's always like a bold um, it's always a bold like term and then it's got this um colon and then you've got your your text. So there's if you're going to use AI-generated content, there's other things you can do. For example, bold the com bold commission, press enter and use this on the next line, for example. So it kind of breaks it up. So it kind of breaks it up a bit. So power users of AI can't tell that it's AI-generated content, but you can see you can >> do they have M dashes? Looks like maybe they remove the M dashes.
Maybe they remove the maybe they remove the M dashes in um in this one, but I'm sure we can find articles that do that do have them. Uh, but yeah, if you know, we can have a whole other episode on this, but yeah, best creating best articles like these. This is probably the number one tactic that people are using to show up in Chai.
Well, let me ask you this. Do you think like um, so I feel like some people might look at this and be like, well, it doesn't look that bad. Like it doesn't, and you're right. They are doing things right. They have a video in. They have images. Images are great. Like a really good way to make AI writing more human is to have video and images.
But like, do you think this article is that bad? They definitely have worse articles. Like the motivational quotes one was atrocious. That's like that was that was really bad. Do you think this one is that bad?
You know, looking at this one itself, I would based on everything else that's out there, I wouldn't say it's that bad because if we typed in "best affiliate programs" on Google, there's going to be articles that are worse. Um, just because someone else is creating bad content, you know, doesn't mean you create content that's slightly better than than them. I think I think there's more things you can do. Um, you know, there's there's more things they can do here rather than having this long list, maybe a table, break it down. "Best affiliate marketing programs for what?" um, "for what industry?" Like, there's Yeah, there's other things they can do.
In this article, I'm sure if we go through the list, um, there's probably going to be >> and I mean, the reason the reason it is so broad is because they're targeting a million terms, and that's why they got hit so bad. Another another question is like, if they were just targeting if they were just targeting a few best keywords, "best X for Y" keywords, like a handful >> or even under 10, do you think they actually could have like kept those pages ranking?
Yeah, cuz I'm seeing that right now. So, one thing in common with a lot of um Yeah. So, this is again, this is all over SEO LinkedIn and SEO Twitter or SEO X right now is that best articles are still working. So, there's some SEOs that are saying, "Hey, Google is going after these best lists," and there's other SEOs showing screenshots of their dashboard saying, "Hey, my article is still ranking. Google's not coming after it." Well, it's probably because yeah, they don't they haven't scaled them. So, if we just look at this graph again from uh from ahs. So, in November, they had about 72 organic pages with "best" in the URL. And in February, they've got 90, you know. So that's quite a big um that's quite a big jump in just like three three or three or four months. So yeah, I think some of them are getting hit because the of the volume that they are um that they are they are pushing out. Um, let's take a look at this one. So this one seems interesting. "Best Comparison Shopping Engines to Increase E-commerce Sales." So 26 best pricing point. Yeah. So it's this one that um this one that loaded. So if we scroll down, there you go. So this is a typical like SEO piece of content like when you look at the table of contents. So I have for those of you that will be listening, the table of contents reads "What is a price comparison?" Then they've got a TLDR. Then they've got "Best US Price Comparison Websites and Apps." And they've got "Best Price Comparison Websites >> for Global Shoppers," "Best Price Comparison Apps for iPhone and Android." Then we've got "Barcode Scanner Price Comparison Mobile Apps."
Like, it's just very bad. Like >> when you Yeah, this is just a very bad um >> they were probably able to get away for get away with it for a while because their authority is so high.
And that's the key. And that that is the key. So when we look at um, so when we look at this chart um, you know, they got away with it for a long time. So this goes back to 2021. From 2021 to 2023, like they were the increases on their blog section were great. From 2023 um, and this is keywords with "best," they started to see a bit of a decrease, but then at times they went back up again, they went back down again, they went back up again, they went back down again. Yeah, they can get away with it because they are Shopify. And it's not just Shopify. I think a few months ago, the HubSpot case study was going around in SEO circles where, you know, they could create content around anything and they would rank, and they kind of can't do that do that anymore. A lot of the productivity websites um, like task tracking websites like Asana, ClickUp, um, monday.com, they have very similar content strategies where they just publish in the blog for the sake of publishing. And yeah, they get away with it for a while because they have good domain authority, they're doing link building, they're doing all of the checkbox SEO stuff, but there comes a point when, you know, something changes on Google's end. Either someone does something manually, which I don't know, or it's an algorithmic action, and they start to see they start to see declines. But if you're a small business and you're trying to do this, so if we made a website today and we published 500 articles around "what is," "how to," "best" topics, you know, we might rank for a few weeks, but then we're just going to we're going to get crushed. And I think you you even shared a case study of AI Invest a few weeks ago, or was it a couple of months ago where >> Oh, I've shared them all the time.
Yeah. There you go. So you share them all the time, so the listeners know that sites that aren't Shopify, and these are the big venture-backed companies, they can kind of get away with it for a bit. Um, the rest of us can't.
Well, a lot of No, I would disagree with that. I would say a lot of a lot of sites can get away with it for a bit, but I would classify a bit as being like a few months, cuz AI Invest got away with it for two months. They went from 275,000 clicks a month to then they because of the June core algorithm update up to 9.5 million clicks a month, and then they got there, and then the spam August update came, and they got just destroyed, and now they rank for, I think under 100, they get 100 thou, less than 100,000 clicks a month, might be even like 75,000 clicks a month, but but again, they got away with it for two months.
Yeah. So when we think about like getting away with one month, two months, three months, it's let's look at a business. So if you're a business that is in it for the long game, um, you know, 10, 15, 20, 25 years, what how like how much is getting away with something that you're probably going to get hit with? How much is that worth to that business? And what long-term effect is it going to have? Now, for AI Invest, I might even say like, I I don't know what their traffic makeup is like right now, but maybe the 100,000 users they're getting right now after doing what they did is better than where they were 18 months ago. So, maybe that's, you know, much more traffic than they were getting 18 months ago, but it's not as much traffic as they were getting um, you know, at their at their peak. So, when I think businesses think about doing something that's a little bit risky, it's always worth thinking like, where do I want to be in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years' time? Um, do I want to burn my domain? Do I ever want to launch a new domain, for example? There's so much stuff to consider before trying. I'd say maybe, I don't know if this is gray hat, but gray hat SEO stuff or even black hat SEO stuff.
Yeah. And um, I mean, multiple people actually. Gagan was one of. So Charles Float shared this and Gaganra commented and said he's seeing this too, which is that manual actions are becoming like permanent. Basically, you're trying to get them reversed, and you can't. And you're doing everything that you should, and you can't get them reversed. Also, like, even if you don't get a manual action, to what extent does like something that like where Shopify got hit, let's say it happens to a site with much lower domain authority, to what extent does it hurt their ability to rank in a white hat way for keywords?
Yeah. Yeah, and I'm sure it's going to have an impact. And um, you know, other SEO experts and other people that you know have been in the industry for much longer than me, they've they've said in the past, it can take years to recover from an algorithm update. You know, sometimes it it can take 2 years, it can take 3 years to see a reversal for, you know, for legitimate like, you know, I'd say $50, $200 million businesses, it can take a long time to see reversals. So that's the price um, you know, these companies would have to pay if they want to get back into I'd say Google's Google Google's good books.
Yeah, Pete, this was awesome. Do you have anything else to show before we wrap?
No, but I'm sure we can come on another time and look at other sites that have uh done something similar. But yeah,
I would love to I would love to look at more at more SERs with you and more charts like like this is this was this episode was so much fun and I I I want to do more like this. Um, so yeah, thank you again for coming on.
Yeah, it was great. Thanks for having me on.
All right, this is episode Oh, and for I mean, for everyone who's not following you, you've been on this is your I think your like fourth time on the show or maybe even fifth, but for people who aren't following you, where can they find you?
Um, you can find me on uh LinkedIn. um Harpit Singh or you can find me on X @harpchatter and I'm sure all the links will be in the YouTube video too.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right, this is episode 955 of the Edward Show. 955 days in a row doing this podcast. If you watch us on YouTube, thank you so much for watching. If you listened on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye now.