Everyone has the same AI website. Do you still stand out?

The demo above shows it in two sentences. The first intro could sit on any site: it promises everything and says nothing. The second names a year, a place and a team. That sentence can only belong to one business. That difference, between copy that fits anywhere and copy that only fits you, is what this article is about.

We go through why AI sites look alike, what Google says about content made with AI, where recognisability lies, what you supply yourself and how to test your site. The examples come from sites we built ourselves, as described on their case pages.

Why do AI websites look alike?

Suppose you give an AI site builder a short brief, such as “a modern, professional website for an installation company”. With so little information, it chooses what is usual for such a business. Google writes in its own guidance on AI content that such language models do not look up facts, but predict which words are likely to follow. What is likely is what is ordinary. That is not a fault of the tool: it does exactly what it was made for.

Such a site then looks, for example, like this. A large heading in the middle with a button underneath. Three cards side by side, each with an icon. A photo of smiling people at a meeting table. Words such as “hassle-free”, “quality” and “total solution”. Each of those choices can be defended. Together they make a site that looks finished, but that you could stick onto any other business.

This is not only true of AI. A bought theme works the same way: it is made to fit as many businesses as possible, and so no business in particular. Our page on web design puts it like this: a design of your own instead of the same theme your neighbour bought.

In both cases the most important thing is missing: what the generator does not know about you. Since when you have existed, where you are based, who does the work, what you do and do not take on, what customers ask you every week. Without those facts it fills the gap with general words. Then you get the first intro from the demo.

Does that matter, if the site looks neat?

A neat site is better than a messy one. But neat is not the same as recognisable. Picture a visitor looking up three installation companies in their region. If they see the same structure, the same promise and the same photos three times, they have little to choose on. They then choose on price, on distance or on who answers first. Your work may be better, but your site does not show it.

A recognisable site gives that visitor something to remember: a colour, a sentence, a photo of a place they know, a fact they read nowhere else. How many visitors stay because of that, we have not measured. The reasoning is simple: whoever cannot be told apart is chosen on something other than their work.

May you use AI for your website? What does Google say?

Yes. In February 2023 Google wrote that it looks at the quality of content, not at how it was produced. Google’s search systems aim to reward original, high-quality content, and not every use of automation or AI is spam. However: whoever uses AI with the primary purpose of manipulating rankings in Google violates the spam policies.

Those spam policies name a form that comes close to AI sites: creating many pages with generative AI without adding value for users. Google calls this scaled content abuse. The question is not whether AI helped write it, but whether the pages offer something.

What “offering something” means, Google describes on its page on helpful content with a series of questions for creators. A few of them touch this subject directly. Does the content provide original information, research or analysis? Does it provide substantial value compared with other pages in the search results? Does it avoid simply copying or rewriting other sources? And does it show first-hand experience, from someone who really knows the product or service?

Google also asks creators to think about who, how and why. Is it clear to a visitor who wrote the text? Is it clear when AI was used, and how? Made-up authors, for example with a photo generated by AI, Google calls misleading. And in its guidance on AI content Google advises checking everything for accuracy before publishing, including titles, descriptions, structured data and the alt texts of images.

Note what Google does not say. Nowhere does it say that a site made with AI ranks lower, and nowhere that a design of your own ranks higher. What it does say is that content must add something. That is where the average AI site falls short, not because AI wrote it, but because nothing in it belongs only to you.

Where does recognisability lie?

In four layers, from visible to felt: typography, rhythm, imagery and voice. Beneath them lies a fifth, which fills the other four: your own facts. You can make a choice about each layer. A generator makes that choice too, but the safest one.

Typography: one choice that comes back everywhere

One distinctive typeface for the headings, used everywhere, does more than ten typefaces that commit to nothing. Choose a heading typeface that fits how you want to come across, and a calm one for the running text. Record which sizes you use, and stick to them, also on the page you add a year from now. Recognisability comes from repetition: the same typeface on your site, your quote and your van.

Rhythm: not every block the same size

Rhythm is the variation on a page. A long paragraph, then a short one. A table, then a quote. An area with lots of white space next to one that is full. A page on which every block is the same size and every section consists of three cards reads like a form. Uneven proportions, white space and pace make a page human. Let the content decide the form: what matters gets more room.

Imagery: what cannot be bought

One real photo of your workplace says more than any glossy stock photo, for a simple reason: it cannot be bought. Nobody else can use it. A photo of your own team, your own van or your own treatment room tells the visitor that there is a real business behind the site.

Imagery is also more than photos. Your logo, your colours and your shapes are part of it. A site can be recognisable without a single photo, if the wordmark, the colour and the visual language are right. Imagery of your own does cost something: our page on web design says that illustrations or a photo shoot make a site recognisable, but take time and sometimes a photographer.

Voice: sentences only you would say like that

The voice carries everything. A point of view, concrete names and dates, sentences only you would say like that. Look again at the two intros in the demo above. The difference is not budget. The difference is daring to say who you are.

You can buy a template. A voice you have to have.

You do not find a voice by choosing adjectives. You find it by listening to how you talk to customers. How do you explain on the phone what you do? What do you say no to? What do you think others in your trade get wrong? You can read more about this in our article on a brand with soul.

Your own facts: what a generator cannot know

Facts make a voice credible. The year you started, the place you are based, how many people do the work, how many projects you delivered, which villages you serve, how quickly you respond. A generator cannot know those facts, and if it fills them in anyway, it makes them up. That is exactly why they make the difference. The second intro in the demo is recognisable because it names three facts you can check.

What do you need to supply yourself?

A site of your own does not start with the design, but with what you know. Our page on web design puts it like this: all you do is explain how your business works. In a brand project we first record who you are, for whom and what you promise, and you read it through, because it has to describe your business. This is what makes the most difference:

1. Your facts. Since when you have existed, where you are based, who does the work, who you work for and in which area. Only what is true and what you want to show.
2. What you do not do. What you say no to shows what you do stand for. It also helps the visitor who is in the wrong place.
3. The questions you hear every week. They make the best headings for your site, and you know the answers better than anyone.
4. How you talk. An email to a customer, a quote, the explanation you give on the phone. That is where we take your tone from.
5. Real photos. Of your work, your place and your people, or room to plan a photo shoot. Without photos is possible too, but then logo, colour and shape have to do the work.
6. Proof that can be checked. Numbers, projects and reviews, with where they come from.
7. Your house style, if you have one. Then we follow it. If you do not have one yet, we design it along the way; that is the work of branding.

If you supply texts and images yourself, we put them in the right place; if we write them, we follow the order in which your visitor looks for things. That is how it is in our process. If you use AI to draft texts yourself, give the tool the same facts, and read everything through. A generator with your facts writes a better first draft than a generator with only your sector.

How do you test your own site?

You do not need an agency to see whether your site is yours. You can do these tests in an hour, preferably with someone who does not know your business from the inside.

The first test is the most important. If what is left is a text you could just as well have put on another business, it says nothing about you. That is our own test, not a Google rule, but it matches the question Google itself asks creators: does your page provide substantially more than other pages?

If you do not recognise your own site straight away in the second test, you know where to start. Usually that is not a new design, but first your own facts and your own tone. They already make an existing design more recognisable, and they are needed for any new design.

Does a design of your own not become heavy and slow?

It does not have to. A design of your own means your own typeface, your own colours and your own structure, not more scripts or more imagery. Recognisable and light go together. A few examples from our case pages: the Sittard Taxi site is built in Nuxt, with static pages of about 32 KB of HTML each. The Taxi Grou homepage, built in Astro, loads 355 KB in 8 requests. The Atiq Tandartsen homepage, also in Astro, was in view after 0.82 seconds in our own measurement on a phone with a slow connection.

Weight is a choice, just like a typeface. What load time does to your visitors and how to measure it yourself, you can read in our article on load time.

When is an AI template fine?

As a starting point to explore, it is fine. If you want to see how a few pages work side by side, or you need a temporary page for an event, a generated site is ready quickly. As an end point it costs you distinctiveness. If you start with a template, fill it as soon as possible with what only you can say.

When this does not apply

This article is about businesses that want to win new customers through their site, in a market where visitors compare several providers. If you mainly work through tenders or regular clients who already know you, your site counts less as a first impression, and more as a place to check who you are.

What we do not know: we have not measured how many visitors drop off on a site that looks like others, or how many extra requests a design of your own brings. Our examples show what was built, not what it yielded. About Google we only mention what Google itself writes; how its search systems weigh that exactly, Google does not disclose. How AI assistants choose which pages to cite, they do not disclose in detail either, so we make no claims about it. And Google can change its guidance: what is here is the state on 3 November 2026.

Wondering how recognisable your site is? Send us your current site below. We will point out what is interchangeable about it and where you can start. More about our approach is under web design and branding. You work directly with Nawid; for each project he puts together a fixed team of specialists.