Google Search Advocate John Mueller has warned that some sites built on low quality AI content may be better off starting over entirely. He shared the advice in a recent r/TechSEO thread on Reddit about recovering from the "Crawled - currently not indexed" status in Google Search Console. The discussion centered on a publisher planning to swap AI generated English articles for original, human written Portuguese content.
What John Mueller told site owners
In the thread, a site owner asked if human written Portuguese content could rescue a site that initially published AI generated English articles. Many of the site's pages were listed as "Crawled - currently not indexed" in Google Search Console, and the owner planned to delete the AI content and replace it with original material.
In his reply, Mueller wrote on Reddit that the real issue is not AI versus human authorship but whether the site adds unique value to the web. He said that simply having a human rewrite AI content does not automatically make the site authentic or useful.
"I wouldn’t think about it as AI or not, but about the value that the site adds to the web. Just rewriting AI content by a human won’t change that, it won’t make it authentic."
Mueller also urged site owners to think of a full content overhaul as a fresh project. Instead of treating recovery as a checklist of edits, he recommended stepping back to define what the site is for and how it will serve users.
Key points from Mueller's Reddit response
- He said site owners should focus on the value their content adds, not on whether it is AI or human written.
- He noted that simply rewriting AI text by hand "won’t make it authentic."
- He advised treating a complete content change "as essentially starting over with no content."
- He recommended deciding what the site should do for users, rather than just choosing which pages to tweak.
- He wrote that starting from "a bad state" can be harder than launching a new domain.
- He added that recovery on a troubled domain "perhaps" may take longer, "maybe much longer," than starting fresh.
What "Crawled - currently not indexed" means
The Reddit discussion centered on pages that showed "Crawled - currently not indexed" in Google Search Console. This status means Google has crawled a page but has chosen not to add it to the index at that time. It can be a sign that Google does not yet see enough value or quality to merit indexing the content.
The site owner asked whether replacing AI generated English articles with human written Portuguese content on the same domain would fix the issue. Mueller replied that the outcome depends on whether the new content genuinely improves the site's usefulness, not just on who wrote it or what language it uses.
Google's public guidance says that AI generated content is not automatically against its policies, but it is evaluated for quality like any other content. Its documentation on helpful content stresses original, people first information that serves a clear audience purpose. Mueller echoed this by warning that manual rewrites alone do not guarantee authenticity or recovery.
He framed a major overhaul as starting a new project, even if the same domain is used. Inheriting a "bad state" can make recovery longer and more difficult than launching a clean site, although he noted that working through that process can still be worthwhile in some cases.
Source and further reading
Mueller's comments come from a public discussion in Reddit's r/TechSEO community about recovering a site that relied on low quality AI content and was stuck in "Crawled - currently not indexed" status.
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