Generic Content: The Trap Killing Your Visibility in AI Overviews
Summarize this article with AI
15 sites per week. 11 have the same problem
I audit 15 e-commerce sites per week. Monday cosmetics, Tuesday jewelry, Wednesday auto parts, Thursday gourmet food, Friday sports gear.
11 out of 15 have a silent problem.
Content so generic it becomes invisible.
I had a jewelry client, seen on a Tuesday. 800 product pages. Each page looked like a photocopy of a competitor. « Silver ring 925, natural stone, handcrafted, ideal as a gift ». The same phrasing. The same adjectives. The same « perfect for gifting ».
Yet organic traffic wasn’t zero: 4,200 sessions per month. Except in AI Overviews… zero citations. Google never pulls that page to answer « best silver ring for women ».
Google held a Search Central Live in Milan last week. One detail caught my attention. The distinction between « commodity content » and unique content. The team explained that AI devalues pages that bring nothing new. Clones.
That’s when I understood: your product pages, your buying guides, your category pages—if they repeat what already exists, AI ignores them. It prefers to cite the source offering a fresh angle. Exclusive data. A comparison never done before.
This week, how many of your pages look like the top 4 Google results?
As the article highlights, 73% of audited product pages contain commoditized content. This donut chart illustrates the scale of the problem.
Commodity Content Prevalence
73% of audited product pages are commoditized
Commodity content: when your pages become ghosts for AI
Google calls it « commodity content ». In plain terms: interchangeable content. The same information, recycled endlessly, with synonyms. Nothing false. Nothing bad. But nothing unique.
At the same Milan event, Google detailed the chunking mechanism. AI breaks each page into semantic blocks (chunks). It compares these blocks to a massive database. If the block looks too much like what you find everywhere, it’s classified « commodity ». And AI pulls from elsewhere.
73% of pages I audit in a month fall into this category.
On average, a page faces the similarity analysis verdict in 8 seconds. Eight seconds to decide if you bring something new or if you’re an echo.
Take two anti-aging cream pages. One says: « enriched with hyaluronic acid, dermatologically tested, suitable for sensitive skin ». So does the other. One adds « made in France », so does the other. Who gets cited? Nobody. Or the site that, on top of that, tells why it chose a rare plant extract, with a photo of the supplier, a transcribed video testimonial, and a comparative analysis of textures. That’s no longer commodity—that’s unique.
The trap isn’t in the error. It’s in the mundane. Your page is « correct ». But correct isn’t enough anymore. AI wants distinctive relevance.
And you—what information do you have that nobody else publishes?
The conformity bias: why you produce generic content without meaning to
Guillaume Attias teaches this in the DOSE framework at BMO Academy: differentiation is first a fight against yourself. The conformity bias is strong. It pushes e-commerce businesses to watch what market leaders do, then reproduce the same product page structure, the same arguments, the same formats. By mimicry.
And it works… in appearance. Because it reassures. Because it looks professional. But it condemns you to commoditization.
Neurologically, conformity reduces cognitive load. Facing the unknown, the brain prefers to copy an existing model. It’s a survival reflex, not a growth strategy.
In AI-driven SEO, this bias becomes a handicap. The chunking algorithm detects this homogeneity. The more you align, the more you disappear.
I observed a case: a dietary supplement brand. Every page copied the structure of the number-one market player. Until the day we added a block « What our customers really say » with raw, unfiltered verbatims, even critical ones. Result? The similarity score calculated by our crawler dropped 82%. A month later, the first AI Overview citations appeared.
Differentiation doesn’t demand more budget. It demands a mental choice: stop copying. Start telling what only you know.
From zero to 14 monthly citations: a cosmetics brand breaks through
Claire sells natural cosmetics online. 300 SKUs. Organic traffic: 2,200 sessions per month. It looked presentable, but stagnant.
Her product pages? Flawless on the surface. « Formula enriched with hyaluronic acid, dermatologically tested, 97% naturally derived ingredients ». But that promise appeared at 17 direct competitors.
Claire had invested in photos, a smooth checkout flow. But AI ignored her pages. Zero citations in AI Overviews. Commoditized content.
We reworked 60 pages—the most strategic ones. The goal: each page must contain at least 3 elements no competitor published.
- The exact origin of ingredients: a cooperative in Burkina Faso, with harvest photos.
- Transcribed customer reviews with precise usage details (« I combined the serum with calendula oil in the evening, and my skin depuffed in 4 days »).
- An original FAQ drawn from real customer service questions, not bots.
We structured the content into clear blocks: a block « Why this ingredient », a block « Testimonials », a block « Advanced usage ».
In 5 months, traffic jumped to 5,900 sessions (+168%). And AI Overviews? 14 monthly citations on queries like « effective natural anti-aging care » or « reactive skin organic serum ».
14 citations. Without a cent of extra ad spend. And a click-through rate from AI Overviews of 11%, versus 3% for classic blue links.
Word count matters less than the dose of originality you inject into it.
The following flow diagram summarizes the three-step method outlined in the article to transform generic content into unique, AI-citing content.
The 3-Step Method to Get AI to Cite You
Transform generic pages into unique, citation-worthy content
The 3-step method to get AI to cite you (not the market)
I work in three steps. It works every time.Step 1: Audit your similarity score.
An analysis bot compares your pages to 5 direct competitors. I measure how many paragraphs say the same thing with different words. If more than 60% of your blocks are generic, you’re in the red.
Step 2: Create exclusive raw material.
Internal data nobody else has. Product return rate: why is it so low? Objective comparison with the market’s flagship product: what do your customers prefer? Advanced usage tutorials filmed and transcribed. Each piece comes from your expérience, not a spec sheet.
Step 3: Structure for semantic chunking.
AI chunks your pages. Give it perfectly identifiable pieces: one H2 for the product story, one H2 for FAQ, one H2 for unusual uses, one H2 for comparative data. Each segment should be extractable and answer a query on its own.
A client in auto parts applied this method to 40 pages. His catalog held rare parts for classic cars. By adding for each part a paragraph « Why this part fails more than average » and « Mechanic’s testimonial », he saw his AI citations explode in 8 weeks.
Ready to analyze your 20 most-visited pages for a first diagnosis?
AI Overviews won’t wait for you to be ready
The Milan Search Central Live confirms a trend accelerating. Google embeds AI Overviews in more and more results. They announced it: Search Console now displays clicks from AI citations. Transparency is coming.
Sites that anticipated semantic differentiation will be the cited sources. Others will be relegated to background noise.
The good news: few players are acting. Conformity bias. Habit. Because rewriting takes effort. But while they copy, you can create unprecedented value. And be rewarded.
My clients’ numbers show a clear trend: non-commodity content gets 3.6 times more citations in AI Overviews than its generic equivalent. And once cited, click-through rate is 3 to 4 times higher. The snowball effect is massive.
So I ask you: in six months, when Google compares your product page to 10 competitors’ pages, will you be the only result cited… or the copy-paste it ignores?
Audit your content through an AI lens – I’ll show you live
In a 45-minute call, I’ll comb through your pages and tell you exactly where the commoditized content hiding your AI Overview citations sits.
Book a strategic call — 45 minFrequently Asked Questions
How do I know if my content is generic?
I compare a sample of 30 pages against 3 direct competitors. If more than 60% of sentences express the same idea with similar words, your content is ‘commodity’. A crawl-based similarity audit gives the exact score.
Do AI Overviews really impact e-commerce SEO?
Yes, Google rolls them out regularly. It displays AI Overview citations for informational and transactional queries (‘what’s the best product for…’). Ignoring this visibility means handing an advantage to your competitors.
What is ‘chunking’ that Google talks about?
Chunking breaks a page into independent content blocks. Each block is judged on its originality. Those too similar to existing content are excluded from citations. Structure your pages with unique, rich blocks.
Do I need to rewrite all my product pages?
No. I advise starting with your top 20% of pages—most profitable or most visited. Apply the 3-step method (audit, exclusive material, structuring) to that first batch. Results will show whether to roll out to the rest of the catalog.
How long before I see citations in AI Overviews?
First effects arrive 4 to 8 weeks after publishing differentiated content. It depends on Google’s crawl and your site’s authority. But once citations start, the momentum accelerates.
