Google Search’s John Mueller has warned that low-value programmatic SEO can lead Google’s systems to lose confidence in a website’s overall value to users.
Mueller said programmatic SEO can often result in websites becoming “spam, borderline spam, or low quality,” particularly when large numbers of pages are created with limited useful information.
He shared the comments on Bluesky while responding to a discussion about a website using programmatic SEO. Mueller explained that creating thousands of pages with code is easy, but providing genuine value across those pages is much more difficult.
He described a common approach where websites combine large lists of domains, technologies, and attributes to create pages for every possible combination. While individual pages may contain some information, the overall website may still offer limited value to users.
Mueller also said adding more automatically generated information does not necessarily make such websites more useful. For example, creating additional pages answering basic questions such as “what does PHP mean?” may increase the number of pages without adding meaningful value.
Mueller said Google’s systems may have “lost faith” in a site’s ability to provide good value based on its older pages.
For websites facing this situation, he said resolving the issue can require significant effort and time to demonstrate the value of the site again.
He also pointed to the work involved in addressing spam-related issues and core update concerns as a comparison for the amount of effort and time that may be involved. However, he clarified that he was not saying the specific website he was discussing was spam.
The main takeaway is that programmatic SEO is not simply about creating more pages. Websites still need to make sure those pages provide useful and meaningful information for users.
