Half of the impacted websites seem to have published exclusively AI Generated Content

In response to the widespread frenzy surrounding the March Google Update and subsequent traffic losses experience by millions around the globe, Originality.AI, a leader in AI content detection conducted two studies to shed light on the implications of these changes for content creators and website owners worldwide.

The study aimed to find out:

1. What websites were impacted by this update
2. Why they were impacted by this update

Study 1 – List of Websites That Had a Manual Action in March 2024

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Analyzing a sample of 79,000 websites to understand the extent of manual actions imposed by Google, Originality.AI discovered:

– Manual actions were imposed on over 1,446 websites, accounting for a significant portion of the sites examined.
– The most heavily impacted websites were those leveraging advertising platforms such as MediaVine, Raptive, or Ezoic.
– Approximately 2% of the analyzed sites experienced manual actions, resulting in a collective traffic loss exceeding 20 million visitors per month.
– The abrupt plummet in traffic experienced by websites boasting over 1 million organic visitors monthly, dropping to zero virtually overnight.

Study 2 – Was AI Content Spam to Blame for the Manual Action?

Amid speculation surrounding the motive behind the update, Originality.AI set out to determine whether AI-generated content played a role in the manual actions. The findings:

– A thorough examination of deindexed websites revealed that 100% of those subjected to manual actions exhibited signs of AI-generated content.
– 7 out of 14 analyzed websites featured AI content in over 90% of their sample articles.

These findings underscore Google’s firm stance against the proliferation of AI-generated content, emphasizing the importance for content creators and website owners to align with the search engine’s guidelines.

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