Why an AI generated website gets spotted, and why that matters
It comes down to trust. A visitor who clocks that your site was generated wholesale, and that nobody went back over it afterwards, starts wondering what else in the business gets that treatment. That is unfair on plenty of good operators, but it is what happens, and it happens before they have read a word of your actual offer.
The second reason is more measurable. Most of these AI website warning signs are also the reason the site does not rank. Slogan headings, duplicated page titles and a single scrolling page with no internal structure are aesthetic problems and search problems at the same time.
The visual tells
These are the ones people recognise without being able to say why.
- A rounded pill badge floating above the main heading, often with a sparkle or a small dot, saying something like "trusted by 500+ businesses"
- A purple or indigo gradient across the top of the page, and gradient text on the headline
- Three feature columns of exactly equal height, each with a small coloured circle icon
- Emoji used as section headings
- Perfect symmetry in every section, because nothing was ever adjusted by hand
- One long scrolling page with anchor links instead of real separate pages
- The Inter typeface, loaded from Google Fonts, on a site with no other design decisions in it
Any one of these is fine on its own. All seven together is a fingerprint.
The writing tells
The copy is usually the giveaway before the layout is.
- Long dashes scattered through the body text, in a pattern no New Zealander writes with naturally
- Words that keep reappearing: elevate, unlock, seamless, transform, empower, cutting edge
- Openers like "in today's fast paced world" and closers like "we do not just build websites, we build relationships"
- Three word taglines with full stops between them. Fast. Reliable. Affordable.
- American spelling and American terms, so zip code instead of postcode, and state instead of region
- Prices with no mention of whether GST is included, which no New Zealand business does
The invented tells, and these are the serious ones
Everything above is cosmetic. This next group is a liability.
- Testimonials attributed to people who do not exist, often with a suburb attached for realism
- Statistics nobody measured, such as a 98 percent satisfaction rate or 500 projects completed
- Memberships, accreditations or certifications the business does not hold
- A number of years in business that does not match reality
- Stock avatars pulled in from a placeholder image service
- Placeholder text left live, including bracketed phone numbers and an address on Main Street
Worth being blunt about this one. Under the Fair Trading Act, a misleading claim on your website is your responsibility, not the model's. "The AI wrote it" is not a defence. Invented reviews and invented credentials are the two we see most often and the two most likely to cause you a real problem.
The search tells
These are invisible to visitors and are the reason the phone does not ring.
- The main heading is a slogan rather than a search. "Your vision, our craft" reads nicely and nobody types it. "Bathroom renovations in Henderson" is what people actually search for.
- Section headings are abstractions with no search volume at all: our process, why choose us, our values
- Every page carries the same title tag, usually the business name on its own
- Meta descriptions are missing, or identical across the site
- No suburb, city or region anywhere in the text, so local searches cannot match you
- No structured data, so Google has no confirmation of what the business is, where it is, or how to contact it
- No sitemap, and often a robots.txt copied from an example that blocks the whole site
- Images named image1.png with no alt text, several megabytes each
The ones you can fix this afternoon
Not everything here needs a developer. Working down in order of payoff:
- Delete every testimonial, statistic and credential you cannot personally verify. Do this first.
- Rewrite the main heading so it names what you do and where you do it.
- Give each page its own title and description.
- Search the text for long dashes and replace them with commas or full stops.
- Change American spellings and add GST wording to any price.
- Compress your images and give each one alt text describing what it shows.
- Add a privacy policy if the site has a contact form, because it collects personal information.
- Test the contact form yourself and check it arrives, including the spam folder.
That list will clear most of the visible tells on a typical AI generated website and costs nothing but a few hours.
The ones that need infrastructure
The rest cannot be fixed by editing the page, and this is where most people stall. Getting mail authentication set up so form emails arrive. Logging enquiries somewhere so a failed email does not lose the lead. Splitting one long page into properly structured separate pages. Adding schema. Getting the site verified in Search Console with a sitemap submitted. Backups, updates and monitoring so it keeps working after launch.
That is the work we do for a flat $324 including the first year of New Zealand hosting, and there is a free written appraisal first so you can see exactly which of these your site is failing before you decide anything.
If you would rather do it yourself, our guide on how to get a ChatGPT website online walks through the same ground step by step.
