What AI slop is, and how to spot it on your own website

The meaning of the word, the forms slop takes on a business website, and the four qualities Google asks its raters to look for when they judge a page.

AI slop is low-quality digital content produced in quantity with AI, as Merriam-Webster defined it when it chose "slop" as its 2025 word of the year. On a business website it shows up as articles nobody checked, product descriptions that could describe any product, and pages that repeat what other sites say. Google's raters judge pages on effort, originality, skill and accuracy, and slop fails all four.

Where the word comes from

According to the Associated Press report of Merriam-Webster's announcement in December 2025, "slop" was first used in the 1700s for soft mud. Over time it came to mean anything of little value. In 2025 the dictionary added the meaning most people now have in mind: "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence."

Merriam-Webster's president, Greg Barlow, told the Associated Press that people found this kind of content "fascinating, annoying and a little bit ridiculous". Anyone who has searched for a recipe in the last two years and scrolled through four paragraphs of empty introduction before the ingredients knows the feeling.

Why does the word matter to a business? Because readers now have a name for what they dislike, and a name makes a thing easier to notice. A customer who has learned to recognise slop on social media will recognise it on a plumber's blog or a dentist's service page as well, and will draw a conclusion about the business behind it.

The two parts of the definition

The dictionary definition holds two conditions, and both are worth reading slowly. The first is "low quality". The second is "produced usually in quantity". Slop is what happens when a tool that makes writing fast is used to make writing in bulk, with nobody checking whether each piece is good.

Neither condition says that AI use alone makes something slop. A business owner who asks a chatbot to turn notes from a site visit into a clear article, then checks the result and adds photos from the job, has used AI, and the page is good. A competitor who asks the same chatbot for "50 blog posts about kitchen renovations" and pastes them into the company site the same afternoon has produced slop, even if a few of the posts happen to read well.

Google draws the line in the same place. The guidelines it gives to the people who rate its search results say that "the use of Generative AI tools alone does not determine the level of effort or Page Quality rating", and they add that the same tools "may be used for high quality and low quality content creation."

What slop looks like on a business website

Slop on a business site rarely looks like the strange images that circulate on social media. It looks ordinary. That is precisely why it survives on so many sites: each page seems acceptable on its own, and only a reader who reads several of them notices the pattern.

• Blog posts that open with a general statement about how important the topic is "in today's world", then list advice any reader could guess, then end with a paragraph that repeats the introduction.
• Service pages that describe the service in words that would fit any company in any city, with no prices, no photos of real work and no names.
• Product descriptions written by AI from the product title alone, which repeat the title in longer words and say nothing a buyer needs to know, such as the size, the material or what is in the box.
• Location pages, one for each nearby town, where only the town name changes from page to page.
• Reviews or testimonials that a tool invented. Chapter 7 explains why these are unlawful in the United States, in addition to being slop.
• Pages that summarise other websites, often the first results in Google for the same search, without adding anything those sites did not already say.
• Text left over from the chat window, such as "As an AI language model" or "I hope this helps". Google's rater guidelines name the first phrase as a sign that content was paraphrased with an AI tool.

The four qualities Google's raters look at

Google publishes a document of 182 pages for the people it pays to rate search results. Google says their ratings do not directly change rankings; they are used to test whether its ranking systems work. The document is still the clearest description Google gives of what it considers a good page, and its help page on helpful content repeats the four qualities raters judge in the main content of a page.

Notice one sentence on the same Google page: "Attribution or giving credit to other sources doesn't replace the need for original effort." A page that links to ten good sources and adds nothing of its own is still a page with little effort in it.

AI-assisted content compared with slop

The difference between the two is easiest to see side by side. The same topic, the same tool, and two different pages: the table shows where they part ways.

A test you can run on your own site today

You can judge your own pages with the same questions, and it takes less time than it seems. Choose five pages, preferably the ones that bring the most visits from Google, and ask of each one the following. Be strict, because a customer will be.

A page that answers "no" to the first, second, fourth and fifth questions, and "yes" to the third, is slop by any reasonable definition, whoever wrote it. A page that passes all five is in good shape, and the remaining chapters of this guide will help to make it better still.

• Is there at least one fact, photo or example on this page that only my business could give?
• Has someone in my business read this page in full since it was published?
• Could a competitor in another city copy this page, change the name, and use it without anyone noticing?
• Does every number on the page have a source that I have opened myself?
• If a customer read only this page, would they know something useful they did not know before?

What to do with the slop you find

Once the test has found the weak pages, there are three honest choices for each one, and the right choice depends on whether the page answers a question a customer asks.

• Improve it, when the question is real and the page is the right place to answer it. Check the facts, add the business's own details and rewrite the parts that read like a template. Chapter 4 sets out the steps.
• Merge it into a stronger page, when two or more pages answer the same question in similar words. Keep the best one, move any useful facts from the others into it, and send visitors from the old addresses to the page that remains.
• Remove it, when nobody asks the question it answers. Google's spam policy says that a site hosting content made at scale without value should "exclude it from Search", and the simplest way to exclude a page nobody needs is to take it down.

Why slop spread so fast

It must be said that slop is the result of a real temptation. Writing a good page takes hours. Generating a page takes seconds. Google itself acknowledged the scale of the problem in March 2024, when it announced changes to reduce "low-quality, unoriginal content" in its results, and reported on 26 April 2024 that its results showed 45% less of that content.

The temptation is easier to resist when you count what a small business actually needs: the pages that answer the questions its customers ask, each one written well enough that a customer who reads it calls. Those pages are worth the hours.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Avoiding AI slop. The other parts:

• What Google says
• Signs of AI writing
• The editing process
• First-hand experience
• Checking facts
• Bylines and disclosure
• Publishing at scale

Questions people ask

Where does the word slop come from?

According to the Associated Press report of Merriam-Webster's choice in December 2025, "slop" was first used in the 1700s for soft mud, and over time it came to mean anything of little value. In 2025 Merriam-Webster added its new meaning, low-quality digital content produced in quantity with artificial intelligence, and named it the word of the year.

Is all AI-generated content slop?

No. Merriam-Webster's definition requires low quality and production in quantity, and Google's rater guidelines say that using generative AI tools "alone does not determine the level of effort or Page Quality rating." A page drafted with AI, then checked, corrected and filled with the business's own facts by a person who knows the subject, is AI-assisted content and can be a good page.

Can a page written by a person be slop?

Yes. Google's March 2024 change to its spam policy targets pages made at scale with little value "whether automation, humans or a combination are involved." A person who rewrites competitors' pages in other words, or fills location pages with the same text and a new town name, produces the same low-value result as a careless chatbot user.

What are the most common forms of slop on small business websites?

The most common forms are blog posts with general advice and no facts from the business, service pages that could belong to any company, location pages where only the town name changes, product descriptions that repeat the product title, and invented reviews. Text left over from a chatbot window, such as "As an AI language model", appears as well, and Google's raters treat it as a warning sign.

What do Google's quality raters look for in a page?

Google's help page on helpful content lists four qualities raters judge in a page's main content: effort, originality, talent or skill, and accuracy. Effort means the human work that went into the page; Google says that generating large amounts of text with AI "without manual oversight or curation represents little to no effort." Ratings are used to test Google's systems and do not directly change rankings.

Does citing good sources stop a page from being slop?

Not on its own. Google's help page says: "Attribution or giving credit to other sources doesn't replace the need for original effort." A page that links to ten reliable sources and only summarises them still adds nothing new. Sources support the facts on a page, and the page also needs something of its own, such as experience, examples or analysis from the business.

How many pages does a small business website need?

There is no fixed number, and Google says it has no preferred word count either. A useful rule is one page for each question customers ask: one per service, one per area you serve if each area has its own facts, and articles that answer the questions you hear on the phone. Pages that answer no one's question are where slop collects.

Why do AI product descriptions often count as slop?

Because a chatbot given only a product title can only repeat that title in longer words. It does not know the size, the material, what is in the box or how the product behaves after a month of use. Buyers need those facts. Google Merchant Center also requires AI-generated product titles and descriptions to be labelled as AI-generated in the product data sent to Google.

How quickly can I check my site for slop?

Start with five pages, the ones with the most visits from Google, which Google Search Console lists for free. For each one ask whether it holds a fact only your business could give, whether someone has read it in full, and whether every number has a source you opened. Those three questions find the weakest pages first.

Do readers notice AI slop?

Readers now have a word for it, which makes it easier to notice. Merriam-Webster's president told the Associated Press that people have found such content "fascinating, annoying and a little bit ridiculous." Wikipedia keeps a long guide to the signs of AI writing for its editors. Chapter 3 of this guide lists the signs readers most often recognise, with the plain version of each.

Sources

1. Merriam-Webster's 2025 word of the year is 'slop.' Here's why, The Associated Press. Published 15 December 2025, accessed 4 November 2026.
2. Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, Google. Version of 11 September 2025, accessed 4 November 2026.
3. Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, Google Search Central. Last updated 2026-10-05, accessed 4 November 2026.
4. New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search, Google, The Keyword. Published 5 March 2024, updated 26 April 2024, accessed 4 November 2026.
5. Google Search's guidance on using generative AI content on your website, Google Search Central. Last updated 2026-10-01, accessed 4 November 2026.
6. Spam policies for Google web search: scaled content abuse, Google Search Central. Last updated 2026-08-28, accessed 4 November 2026.

Keep reading

• How to avoid AI slop: the full guide
• What Google says about content written with AI
• What first-hand experience adds that AI cannot
• Publishing many pages without a spam problem
• Run the free Get Found Check

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