Commodity content is a page any competent generalist could have written from the same brief. It is correct, tidy, and interchangeable with the ten pages already ranking, and that is why it does not rank: Google already has ten of it. The test is not whether AI wrote it. The test is whether anything on the page proves that a particular person with particular experience made it.
Copy number 1,001
In SEO land I call it 'copy number 1,001'. The subject has been written up a thousand times, and here is one more, with the same structure, the same hedged advice and the same stock photo. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing in it either.
The rule: if you could delete the author's name and the shop's name and nothing on the page would stop making sense, it is commodity content. The consequence is that the quality of the writing does not save it. Google ranks it below the pages with receipts, and AI answers do not cite it, because there is nothing in it that they could not get from the other ten. The fix is rarely a rewrite. It is adding the two or three things that are missing.
The twelve signals below are what the free Commodity Content Scanner reads from a page and its author and about pages, built from Google's quality rater guidelines. Eight are on the page, four are on the site.
| Signal | Commodity looks like | Specific looks like, for an espresso shop |
|---|---|---|
| First-hand opinions | "Many users prefer…" | "We would buy this one with our own money, and not the other three." |
| Specific incidents | None | "Two of the four we stocked came back within a month with the same steam valve fault." |
| Proprietary numbers | Manufacturer specs, copied | The shot times, the water hardness, the return rate you recorded |
| "I tried, I tested" | "It is said to…" | "We ran both machines every morning for a month." |
| Real research or citations | "Studies show" | A link to the manual, the manufacturer's descaling note, Google's page |
| Non-hedged voice | "It may be worth considering" | "Get the dual boiler if you make more than two milk drinks a day." |
| Honest limits | Everything is "great for everyone" | "If you only drink espresso, skip this page. A single boiler is fine." |
| External citations that carry weight | None, or affiliate links only | The roaster, the repair manual, the water report |
| Author page with a bio | Missing | Ana Ruiz, repairs and sells machines, ten years at the counter |
| Verifiable credentials | "Expert team" | Where she trained, what she repairs, a photo of the bench |
| A real person as author | "Admin", "Editorial staff" | A name that also appears in the trade forum |
| An about page with substance | Three adjectives and a stock photo | The shop, the address, who works there, since when |
The same sentence, twice. Copy 1,001: "This machine is a great entry-level option that offers excellent value for money and is perfect for beginners looking to get started with espresso at home." Delete the shop's name and nothing changes. Specific: "Of the four entry-level machines we stock, this is the one we would buy with our own money. It is the only one that has not come back to the bench in its first year, and the two that did both failed at the steam valve." Delete the shop's name and the sentence stops making sense, because it is about this shop's bench. That is the whole difference, and it is what the reader came for.
Worked example: the deletion test on one sentence
The ten-minute fix
- Run the deletion test. Cross out the author's name and the business name and read the page. Whatever stops making sense is a receipt. You need more of those.
- Add one first-hand take. What you would actually do, and why, in one sentence without a hedge.
- Add one number you measured. A time, a count, a reading, a price you paid. Not a spec sheet.
- Add one incident. What went wrong last month with this product or procedure, and what you did about it.
- Say where the advice does not apply. One honest limit does more for trust than three more benefits.
- Cite one real source for one claim. The manual, the manufacturer's note, a Google page. Linked.
- Sign it, and make sure the author page exists. A real name, a role, a photo. E-E-A-T in practice covers that page.
- Paste the page into the scanner and fix what it marks. It returns a verdict, commodity, mixed or specific, and the signals it did not find. Then run it again.
When you need this, and when you don't
You need this before every page goes live, and once across your twenty most visited pages if the site has been around a while. The deletion test alone retires a good share of most old blogs, and the site is better for it.
You don't need it for pages that compete with nobody, and you don't need a perfect score. Four of the twelve signals, honestly earned, beat copy 1,001 every time.
Next
- Next page: How AI answers pick their sources. Why the receipts on this page are also what gets a page quoted.
- Clean the robot phrasing out first with the free AI-Tell Detector, then scan for commodity signals. The two tools are built to run in that order.
- How section-by-section writing inside SitePerfector leaves the parts only you can write to you: Article writing.