Will Google penalise our website for using AI?

The owner of a small renovation company in Ubi let a freelancer fill her website using AI this year. Since June it has gained about sixty pages. "Renovation contractor in Tampines." "Renovation contractor in Punggol." Jurong West. Sengkang.

One evening she reads them side by side. Most are the same page: the same paragraphs, the same photos, a different town at the top.

The enquiry form has been quiet for weeks, and Google has just finished a clean-up of its results. Her question is simple: is Google pushing us down because AI wrote these?

Does Google mind if AI wrote the page?

No, not because AI wrote it. Google says using AI is not against its rules, and that it judges what a page gives the reader, not how the page was made. What its spam rules push down is many pages made mainly to catch searches without adding anything new, whoever or whatever wrote them. So keep the pages that answer a real customer, merge the copies, add what only you know, and have a person check every AI draft.

SEO is the work of getting your website found in Google's ordinary results, the list of links under the search box. Everything below is about those results.

Why so many owners are asking now

Because so many now use it. Almost one in four of Singapore's small and medium businesses used AI in 2025, up from about one in seven the year before, going by IMDA's latest count. Writing website pages is one of the easiest jobs to hand it.

And on 8 October, Google finished its fourth spam update of the year. It began on 24 September, took almost two weeks, and applies in every country and language, Singapore included. Google's three other spam updates this year were each over within three days. Google calls these updates improvements to the systems that spot spam, and says a site that breaks its rules may rank lower or not appear at all. It has not said how many searches changed.

Google minds the photocopier, not the typist

Think of AI as a very fast typist. Google has no quarrel with the typist. In its own words, appropriate use of AI or automation is not against its guidelines, and it judges the quality of a page rather than how it was produced. Google even points out that about ten years ago the worry was pages mass-produced by people, and nobody thought it reasonable to ban people from writing.

The trouble is the photocopier: the same page run off again and again with a different town, product or keyword at the top. Google's spam rules describe exactly that. They name using AI tools to generate many pages without adding value for users, and pages aimed at one region or city after another that all lead to the same place.

So the renovation company's sixty pages are not at risk because AI typed them. They are at risk because most of them are the same page, over and over.

Three kinds of page Google's rules push down

Three kinds of page are easy to end up with when a website is filled quickly with AI, without anyone meaning to trick anyone. All three are in Google's rules.

1. The same page for every town. Tampines, Punggol, Sengkang, and only the name changes. Google lists pages aimed at specific regions or cities among its spam examples.
2. Articles written to catch a search, not to answer anyone. A steady stream of posts on "best", "cheap" and "near me", each saying what every other page already says. Google asks owners whether they are producing lots of content on many topics in the hope that some of it does well.
3. Other people's words, reworded. A competitor's page run through a tool that swaps the words. Google's rules name reworded and stitched-together pages that add nothing too.

How to tell if the update touched your site

You can check in half an hour, with Google's own tool. If nobody has set up Google Search Console for your website, ask whoever looks after it. It costs nothing, and it shows the searches, clicks and pages Google sends you.

1. Compare the last three months with the three months before, in the report called Performance. Google's own guide to a fall in visits starts there.
2. Look at the dates. If the clicks fell between 24 September and 8 October, the update may be part of it. If they fell in July, look elsewhere first.
3. Sort your pages by the clicks they lost. The whole site, one group of pages, or a single page? A row of look-alike town pages falling together tells you a lot.
4. Open the report called Manual actions. If a person at Google acted against your site, it says so there.
5. Ask whether people are simply searching less. Google's guide lists technical faults, a site move and changing demand as causes too, so a quiet month on its own proves nothing.

Keep, merge and improve

Now read your AI-written pages the way a customer would, and give each one a verdict.

1. Keep the pages that answer a real question. Google asks whether a page shows first-hand experience and a depth of knowledge, and whether it gives more than the other pages in the results. A page that says something only you could say passes.
2. Merge the copies. One strong renovation page that names the estates you work in, with a real job from each, gives a reader more than sixty thin ones. Ask whoever looks after your website to send the old addresses to the page that stays, so nobody lands on an empty page.
3. Improve what is left with what only you know. Photos of your own jobs, before and after. The mistake you see in other people's renovations every month. The answer you give on the phone when someone asks how long a resale flat takes. AI cannot make these up, and they are what Google's guide asks for.

Use AI for the draft, and yourself for the facts

None of this means writing every word by hand. Google says AI can be useful for researching a topic and for giving structure to your own material. It also tells site owners to fact-check and review everything AI writes before it goes up, because AI predicts likely words rather than looking facts up. A wrong price, permit rule or warranty term on your own website is yours to answer for.

A simple routine for a small business:

1. Write down the questions customers really ask, in their words. A couple at the showroom table asks whether the kitchen wall can come down, how long the works take, and what happens if a tile cracks after handover.
2. Answer them your way, in a few rough lines each, or out loud into your phone.
3. Let AI turn your notes into a first draft.
4. Add your own photos, examples and numbers.
5. Read it once as the customer, and cut anything that could sit on any other company's website.

Fewer pages, each one worth reading, is the whole idea.

After you fix the pages, give Google time

Google says a site that now follows its rules may improve as its systems learn this over a period of months. So judge the work in months, not by next week's clicks, and don't answer a quiet month with more pages of the same kind.

What to do this week

1. Open Search Console and compare the last three months with the three before.
2. Check the dates against Google's update, 24 September to 8 October, and open the Manual actions report.
3. Read five of your AI-written pages as a customer, and mark each one keep, merge or improve.
4. Add one real photo and one real customer question to each page you keep.
5. Ask whoever writes your pages how each draft is checked before it goes up.

Questions owners ask

Should we tell readers a page was written with AI?

Where a reader would wonder, it helps. Google suggests giving readers some background on how automation was used when that helps them trust the page. What matters more is that every fact on it is true and has been checked by a person.

Should we stop using AI for our website altogether?

No. Google's rules are about what a page gives the reader, not the tool that typed it. A page drafted with AI, filled with your own photos and answers and checked by a person, is the kind Google's guide describes. Sixty copies of one page are the problem, whoever wrote them.

How long until Google sees the changes we make?

Think in months. Google says its systems learn over a period of months that a site has changed. Keep a note of what you changed and when, so you can match it to your Search Console numbers later.

What should we ask an agency that writes our pages with AI?

Ask who checks each draft before it goes up, what each page says that competitors' pages don't, and how many enquiries last month's pages brought in. A count of articles a month tells you little on its own. AI WISE is a Singapore-based digital marketing agency serving Asia. Our SEO work is pages that match what people search for, a site Google can read quickly, and other trusted sites linking to yours, and you approve every page before it goes live. See how our SEO work runs.