Today's AI Tactics That Look Like Yesterday's SEO Spam

It's crazy how much of today's AI SEO advice and tactics look like spammy SEO tactics from 10-20 years ago that Google nuked (and, in the process, put lots of businesses out of business).

• People used to flood the web with low-quality content because you could overwhelm Google's algorithm with quantity. We called these "content farms." That worked for a while, then it didn't.

• People used to write listicles that listed the "10 Best" companies in the industry, but they always listed their own company first. We called these "fake review articles" or "fake listicles." That worked for a while, then it didn't.

Been seeing a lot of both of those lately in real estate, and even across lots of industries.

The Latest Real Estate AI SEO Tactic

The one I keep seeing lately is where you register new keyword-rich domains and create new websites that exist primarily to link to content on your main website (usually IDX pages) and boost its rankings and/or inject content into AI answers. (The fact that these sites are usually made with 100% AI content isn't helping their cause.)

This is similar to something back in the day that we called "doorway pages" or "doorway content."

Google still talks about this stuff on its current Spam Policies page:

"Doorway abuse is when sites or pages are created to rank for specific, similar search queries. They lead users to intermediate pages that are not as useful as the final destination."

One of Google's examples of doorway content is this:

"Having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page."

Sound familiar? If you're familiar with this current trend, it should.

The Big Question: Why Are You Doing It?

Google launched an update in 2015 aimed at stuff like this. When they announced it, the blog post made several mentions of phrases like

• "created solely for"

• "is the purpose to"

• "intended to"

• "for the purpose of"

• "made solely for"

That's always been the question you have to ask yourself: Why am I registering these new domains and creating these new websites?

It's also the first question Google asks. And the only correct answer, as far as Google is concerned, is "to better serve/help people." Google will look at any other answer as suspicious. They always have. You don't have to like it or agree with it, but that's how it is.

So Can I Have More Than One Website?

There's nothing inherently wrong with having multiple websites (assuming you have the bandwidth to manage them all and make sure each one is high-quality). There are even some really good arguments for having multiple websites.

But again, think of the big question: What's the purpose? Why are you doing it?

If you're registering new domains and launching new websites that will better serve and help real people, you should be fine.

But too much of what I'm seeing right now is vibe-coded websites with 100% AI content -- websites that seem to exist for the sole purpose of SEO and AI SEO.

At best, I think that's gonna be a waste of time and money for real estate agents. At worst, it could have more serious ramifications. Proceed carefully. Ask yourself why you're doing what you're doing.

-Matt

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