Does AI-written content really get demoted? Six months of traffic across three sites
Three content sites, one topic, three approaches. The traffic gap after six months is 4×, and the reason is not whether AI was used.
Three sites: A written entirely by people, B generated by AI and published unedited, C generated by AI then rewritten and fact-checked by people. Same subject area, launched the same day, six months.
Result: C highest, A second at about 70% of C, B last at about 25% of C.
The difference is not the AI. It is whether anyone is accountable
Why B fell behind is concrete: factual errors nobody caught, the same fact stated differently across articles, and not one piece with an original number or interview in it. Search engines have said all along that they grade the content and not how it was made, and this result is consistent with that.
Where C beat A was volume. Same three people: C published 240 pieces in six months, A published 90. With quality held, volume still works.
{"q":"We spend more time checking than we used to spend writing, and we publish three times as much.","by":"C’s editor"}
The line to take away: AI can sit in the production process, but the seat marked “who is accountable for the facts in this piece” cannot be empty. The site that leaves it empty is site B.
