With the February 2026 Discover update now in the wild and a rumoured Spring Core Update on the horizon, the SEO mantra has shifted from ‘content is king’ to a more brutal reality: “Cull the slop, or lose the spot.” Gareth Hoyle, managing director at AI and search marketing agency, Marketing Signals, has identified the 5 red flags that suggest a brand’s AI content is currently acting as a domain liability rather than an asset.
For years, the SEO mantra was ‘content is king.’ However, that king has been overthrown by a wave of ‘AI content.’ As we approach the rumoured Google 2026 Spring Core Update, many brands are facing a ticking time bomb: pages of unedited, AI-generated content that Google no longer views as an asset but as a liability.
Google has recently released the February 2026 Discover core update, which focuses specifically on how content is surfaced in Google Discover. It appears to be doing two things: cracking down on low-quality AI-generated content and rewarding sites that demonstrate true topical authority.
This spring, the winning SEO strategy isn’t about more volume; it’s about a ruthless cull. Google’s quality-over-quantity enforcement has moved beyond simple detection to a more sophisticated functional evaluation, sharpening the focus on experience and expertise. Search enforcement has evolved from identifying AI to evaluating value; if a page doesn’t deliver genuine information, it could be a risk to your domain.
Before the next update hits, audit your site for these five red flags that suggest your AI content is doing more harm than good:
- It has zero information gain
Google’s 2026 algorithms prioritise ‘information gain’, the measure of new, unique, authoritative information that a page adds to the existing web index. If your AI content simply paraphrases content already on the internet, without adding anything original, such as unique data, a specific case study or insightful expert opinion, then it’s most likely going to be classed as ‘AI slop’. Google devalues these types of pages as ‘redundant’, which can often lead to a sitewide ‘helpful content’ suppression.
For every piece of AI-generated content on your website, challenge your team to add value to each, whether that be some new data, a unique quote from an internal subject matter expert or a brand new take. If you or your team can’t add value, delete the page and redirect the URL to a more authoritative category page.
- High click-through but low engagement
With the rise of AI overviews, it’s rare for people to click through to content written on a website. Users tend to click through to a website only when they need more information or nuance, or when they actually need the website to buy products or use its services.
Check your Search Console for pages with decent impressions but a plummeting Click-Through rate, and compare this with Google Analytics 4 engagement data to spot ‘bounce to search’ patterns (when users bounce straight from your website back to Google). This signals to Google that the content on your website isn’t helpful. If anyone is spending less than 30 seconds on a long article, it suggests the content isn’t useful. Rewrite the piece, or add value to make it more insightful and interesting. If you can’t, then it’s often safer to delete the page entirely.
- Offers generic expertise and is missing E-E-A-T
Experience and expertise are usually what set your content apart from your competition. AI can explain how something works, but not the experience of doing it. Content that is generic and lacks first-person pronouns, original photography or specific anecdotes is a massive red flag. Google’s Search Quality Raters and automated systems now flag generic, anonymous expertise as untrustworthy.
The solution? Update your content not only to add value but also, where possible, to include your unique views and experiences. Replace generic stock imagery with real photography or original screenshots. Try to ensure that each article has a verified author byline linked to a robust bio that proves they have experience and are actually experts in that subject.
While it can be tempting to polish up all your content using AI, adding a unique perspective and writing with real authenticity will always be more important to Google than ultra-polished AI-generated copy.
- Poor machine readability
Content isn’t just for humans; it’s for Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). AI systems use your content and data to inform their AI overviews. Review your content for walls of text, vague headings (e.g., introduction or conclusion), Q&A formatting, and a lack of structured data. If an LLM cannot easily extract a ‘snippet-ready’ answer from your page, it will stop citing you, leading to a significant drop in visibility. It also means it’s not user-friendly on mobile devices or tablets.
Review each piece of content to assess how easy it is to read; some sites provide a readability score and suggestions for improvement. Reformat any long-winded paragraphs into punchy paragraphs or bulleted lists, add concise headings that answer specific questions and match the content underneath. Essentially, you need easy-to-understand content that offers fast, user-friendly mobile experiences.
- Flooding your site with content
A significant number of brands adopted a volume-first AI strategy last year, resulting in a saturation of keyword-stuffed content. If your site has hundreds of pages but only a few drive 95% of your traffic, this is another red flag. In their latest updates, Google is increasingly ignoring sites that prioritise quantity over quality, viewing them as content farms rather than authorities in their field.
To utilise as much as you can, consolidate your content. Combine similar articles into larger, more insightful pieces of content. Identify ‘keyboard cannibals’, multiple AI articles competing for the same intent, and merge them into a single piece of powerful content. To pass any existing link authority to the new, higher-quality pages, you could use 301 redirects for the deleted thin pages.
Remember: when reviewing your website content, ask yourself: If I removed the AI-generated portions of this page, would anything of value remain? If the answer is ‘No,’ the algorithm will most probably reach the same conclusion, so it’s time to delete. For future content, focus on original, human-first content with depth and expertise, rather than on keyword stuffing.
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