The claim
Publish thousands of AI pages and collect passive ad revenue from Google..
Still pushed in indie-hacker circles, but repeated Google updates and AI Overviews have dampened enthusiasm in 2026.
How we checked
This is an evidence check, not a hands-on test. We reviewed platform rules and policies, published earnings data, regulator warnings and reporting: 3 sources, listed below.
Costs
- Start-up cost
- £20–£200/month (hosting, AI API, tools)
- Effort
- medium
What the evidence shows
Google's spam rules specifically target pages produced at scale mainly to rank. Its 2024–25 updates removed many sites built this way. Programmatic pages built on genuinely useful data can still work, but mass AI text with nothing original usually gets deindexed or gets no traffic.
Realistic earnings: Commonly near £0; early traffic spikes often vanish after the next Google update.
Limitations
Earnings ranges are typical outcomes for a beginner, drawn from the sources; some people do far better or worse. Platform rules change often, so check the latest policy before you start.
Rarely matches what is promised.
Sources
- Google spam policies: scaled content abuse means many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings developers.google.com
- Aug 2025 Google spam update targeted mass-produced AI pages, parasite SEO and expired-domain abuse seeders.com
- Data roundup: affiliate and content sites saw large traffic losses through March 2026 getchatads.com