The complaint is real. The advice usually stops right where it gets useful.
Quick answer:
Yes, AI has made it trivially easy to flood the internet with generic, unoriginal content, and search engines are getting better at demoting it. But “a lot of new content is low value” does not mean “stop publishing.” That is the same overreach as the old “websites are dead” claim, just wearing a new headline. What actually holds up, now more than ever, is content built on real experience and a real point of view, delivered without hiding behind a one size fits all format.
Same Headline, New Decade
In a recent article, I wrote about the “websites are dead” and “info products are dead” claims that circulate every few months. The pattern held up: the people declaring something dead were usually still doing it themselves. The real story was narrower than the headline. Commodity content was struggling. Content built on real experience and applied judgment was not.
As I’ve written before, I run this blog, not Google and not AI. My stance hasn’t changed. But the headline I was reacting to has.
Now the claim isn’t “websites are dead.” It’s “AI slop has ruined the internet, so why bother publishing at all?” Same pattern. New specifics. So, let’s have a new look!
What’s Actually True in the Complaint
Give this one its due, because it is not wrong.
Google’s Helpful Content systems are explicitly built to detect and demote content that was created primarily to rank rather than to help anyone. AI has made it super cheap to produce just that kind of content at scale. Search results in a lot of niches really have gotten noisier.
If your plan was to publish thin, crappy posts and let volume do the work, that plan was already fragile before AI, and AI hasn’t made it stronger. That much of the complaint is fair.
Where the Argument Overreaches
Here’s the new leap that won’t hold: jumping to the conclusion that because a lot of new content is low value, it’s not worth publishing any new content of one’s own.
Run it through the same question I asked in the last post. Who’s telling you content doesn’t matter anymore, and are they still publishing content while they say it?
Almost always, yes. The newsletter warning you that blogging is dead is, itself, a blog post. The video telling you nobody reads anymore has a script somebody wrote. The claim is not a neutral observation. It is a positioning move, and often a pitch for something else.
What’s actually getting squeezed is commodity content: the generic “ultimate guide,” the repackaged basics, anything that could be produced identically by anyone with the same prompt. That was always weak. AI just made it obvious.
What’s not getting squeezed, and may be worth more than it used to be, is content shaped by someone who’s actually done the thing. Experience, judgment, and a specific point of view are hard to fake and hard to automate.
What People Recommend Instead, When They Bother to Say
This is the part of the conversation that gets skipped most often. The complaining is loud. The actual playbook is quieter, but it does exist, and it is fairly consistent across the people who take the time to think it through.
Point of view over generic information
Content without a human point of view underperforms, even when it’s technically accurate. The value isn’t in having the information. It’s in what you noticed, what surprised you, and what you would tell a friend that a generic answer would not.
Depth and topical authority over breadth
Publishing a little about everything reads as thin. Becoming the clear, reliable resource on a narrower set of things compounds over time in a way that scattershot posting doesn’t. (I keep this in mind, but I’m not a slave to it—see below.)
Systems over sporadic output
Consistency beats motivation. A blog that shows up on a schedule, even a modest one, outperforms a blog that publishes in bursts and goes quiet for months.
Own the relationship, do not just rent the algorithm
Search traffic is borrowed. An email list, or any direct line to people who choose to hear from you, is owned. The healthiest version of a content business treats search as a discovery layer on top of that relationship, not the whole business.
The Trap Inside the Fix
Here’s the part that doesn’t get discussed enough, and it’s worth being careful about, because it’s more guess than fact:
Everyone reading the same advice about depth, structure, and AEO formatting tends to produce content that looks the same. Quick answer box up top. Question phrased subheadings. Closing FAQ block. All good practices individually. Applied identically, post after post, by everyone who read the same guide, and the writing starts to feel assembled rather than thought through.
I’m not claiming search engines have a rule that penalizes a Quick Answer box or an FAQ block. I don’t know that, and I won’t pretend I do. What I do think is fair to say: identical structure applied without variation is usually a symptom of writing for the format instead of the reader. And that underlying problem, a lack of genuine point of view, is exactly what quality systems are built to catch, whether or not the formatting itself is the trigger.
That means the prescribed fix for AI slop can slowly turn into its own version of the same problem. Useful content, real experience, real judgment, all of it flattened into the same shape often enough that it starts to read like a template with the names changed. What was new and useful at first turns into its own same-same-everywhere pattern.
Where I’ve Landed on Unretired Doug
Rather than hand you advice on this one, here is what I am actually doing, which you can take or leave.
For the planned, strategic side of this blog, the series work built to be found on purpose, I’ll use the best structure and SEO and AEO practice I can reasonably apply. Playing that game well is one way that useful work gets in front of the people who go looking for it. I won’t pretend otherwise just for the sake of feeling independent.
But it still has to be a good read. A Quick Answer box or an FAQ block is a tool for the reader who wants the gist and wants to leave. It is not a substitute for having something worth saying or for making the prose in the rest of the article flow easily.
For the one-off posts, the ones written because something happened or something clicked, the only gate is simpler. If I think it will help you, it goes on the blog, in whatever shape the material actually wants to take. No calendar, no template, no obligation to make it look like the last one.
Some SEO savvy. A streak of independence. Both, on purpose, applied to different jobs.
What This Means If You’re Building Something Right Now
You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) ignore the noise about AI slop. Some of it is accurate.
But please don’t conclude that publishing is pointless. That conclusion never followed, not from this argument and not from the “websites are dead” version of it either.
If you’re building a site or a blog, the useful question isn’t “is content dead.” It’s narrower and more answerable: does this reflect something I actually know, and would I still stand behind it if a generic AI answer existed right next to it? If the answer is “yes,” it’s worth publishing. If the honest answer is “no,” that’s worth noticing too, before you spend the time to publish it.
Let’s Sum It Up
- AI generated commodity content is a real and growing problem, and search systems are getting better at filtering it out.
- That doesn’t mean publishing is pointless. It means generic, interchangeable content is losing ground, not content built on real experience.
- Most people declaring content “dead” are still publishing content themselves. That is worth noticing.
- Applying good SEO and AEO practice identically to everything you write can quietly recreate the same flattening problem you were trying to avoid.
- The fix isn’t one rule for everything. Strategic content earns the extra structure and effort to be found. One-off content earns its place by being genuinely useful, in whatever shape that takes.
Quick Answers
Is AI slop really a problem?
Yes. Search systems are explicitly designed to detect and demote content made primarily to rank rather than to help anyone, and AI has made that kind of content cheap to produce at scale.
Should I stop blogging because of AI?
No! What’s struggling is generic, commodity content that anyone could produce with the same prompt. Content built on real experience and a genuine point of view still holds up, and arguably stands out more now.
How do I know if a piece of advice about content is trustworthy?
Check whether the person giving it is still doing the thing they say is dead. If somebody saying “content doesn’t matter anymore” is still publishing themselves… Draw your own conclusion.
Does following SEO and AEO best practices mean my writing has to sound generic?
Not necessarily, but it can happen by accident if you apply the same structure to everything you write without variation. The structure should serve the piece, not replace having something to say.