Google Thinks AI Mode Is Good for Users, but the Content Isn’t Good Enough to Rank in Google

I set up some tests over a month ago to see if Google would rank content generated by Google AI Mode in the organic search results. Spoiler: it did not rank.

Google believes AI Mode content is good enough to show to users in what will likely be the default search mode in the future. But the content itself doesn’t seem good enough to compete in the normal Google search results.

Is it because it’s AI-generated? Is it because there’s nothing new added? Is it because it’s just not good enough? I don’t know.

I am fascinated that this AI Mode content is not the least bit competitive with content that Google normally ranks. I was actually expecting it to rank since the AI Mode content provides a decent overview of each topic. I didn’t expect it to rank at the top, but I figured 10th-30th place would be likely.

In one of the tests, a page of ours about a different topic that didn’t even mention the target keyword actually ranked much higher than the generated page which was more relevant and useful. Fascinating.

Let’s dig in.

Discovered – currently not indexed, that ranks in 41st for this topic. The generated test page is much more relevant and has more useful information, but it still doesn’t rank.

Final thoughts

I do think the generated pages are fairly useful and should probably rank better than some of the other ranking pages, but the fact that they don’t suggests that Google may have some systems in place to prevent this kind of generated content from ranking.

Whether that’s AI content detection, something like information gain, or something else, I’m not sure. It could be multiple systems at work. I’m running another test to see what happens if I add some human content to the mix. I did something similar on a personal test page and had good results.