Empty intensifiers, vague attribution, hedged claims, stock transitions, and unsourced statistics. Google has no published blacklist, so most "AI phrases" advice is folklore dressed as policy. The real signal is simpler and harder to fake: a phrase that stands in for a fact is the phrase that gets you flagged.
No published list exists, which means the flagged phrases story is convention rather than policy. Google's own documentation on creating helpful content describes people-first criteria, not a banned-word list. RankBrain does not scan for "dig." What it responds to is what the phrase reveals: a sentence where a specific claim should be sitting and isn't.
The Five Tells Behind Every Phrase Labeled AI
Every phrase on those viral lists collapses into one of five categories. Learn the categories instead of memorizing the words, and you start catching your own drafts before anyone else does.
The empty intensifier
Words like "truly," "genuinely," "remarkably," and "essential" add no information a reader can verify. They feel emphatic and assert nothing. The test: delete the word and ask whether the sentence lost a fact. If the answer is no, the word was decoration. "This is a remarkably effective approach" becomes "This approach cuts setup time from three hours to twenty minutes" only when you have the real number. When you don't, the intensifier was covering for the fact you never gathered.
The vague attribution
"Studies show," "experts agree," "research suggests," "industry data confirms." Each one points at a source and names nothing. Google's own guidance frames helpful content as demonstrating first-hand knowledge rather than summarizing third-party claims, which is the underlying issue: attribution without a name is a claim without a source. If you cannot name the study's publisher and the year, delete the whole sentence and write the general truth without the fake citation.
The hedge stack
Phrases like "it can be argued," "in many cases," and "it depends on a variety of factors" signal the writer did not want to commit. Hedges are legitimate when you then explain the condition. They become a tell when they replace the answer. "Pricing varies depending on a range of considerations" is a non-sentence. "Pricing scales with the number of tracked keywords per project, so the free allowance covers one project and paid plans cover more" commits to something checkable.
The stock transition
"Moreover," "Furthermore," "Additionally," "It is worth noting that," "In today's digital landscape." These don't just sound like AI; they are filler that pushes the real claim further from the reader. The fix is not to find a fresher transition. The fix is to lead with the point itself. "Furthermore, backlinks remain critical" becomes "Backlinks are the part nobody wants to do, so most pages skip it." Different sentence, same claim, and now it reads like a person who does the work.
The unsourced statistic
"Up to 70% of businesses report..." with no link is the clearest tell of all, because it invites a reader to check and find nothing. A number without a source URL in the same sentence is worse than no number, because it sounds specific and is unverifiable.
If you are auditing existing pages for these patterns, start with auditing what Google never reads. The tells live in the paragraphs a skimmer skips.
How to Judge Whether a Sentence Is Actually Risky
Ask one question of every sentence: if we strip the adjectives and the hedge, is there a verifiable claim left? A sentence that survives with a number, a name, a date, or a specific mechanism is doing work. A sentence that collapses into "this matters" was never carrying information.
The criteria worth writing on a sticky note:
- The fact test. Delete every adverb and adjective. Does a checkable statement remain?
- The attribution test. Every named claim traces to a named source with a link. No exceptions.
- The specificity test. Does the paragraph answer a question a real person typed, with an answer that could only come from someone who did the work?
- The date test. Statistics and policies carry dates. An undated claim is a claim from nowhere.
Google's documentation on the sites Google's help systems reward frames this around who created the content and why, not which words appear. That is the standard to write against: demonstrated effort rather than detected vocabulary.
A Rewrite Method You Can Run on Your Own Drafts
- Pull every sentence that opens with a stock transition and delete the transition. Read what remains. If it still works, the transition was padding.
- Highlight every intensifier in the draft, then delete the highlight. Where the sentence now reads thin, you found a claim that needs a real fact, not a stronger adjective.
- Circle every attribution ("studies show," "experts agree"). Name the source and link it, or delete the sentence entirely.
- For each hedge, write one commit: the condition under which the claim holds. "It depends" becomes "it depends on X, and here is how to tell which side you are on."
- For every statistic, add the inline source link in the same sentence. If you cannot, cut the number. A qualitative sentence beats a fabricated percentage every time.
That last one is where the real cost sits. Google's site reputation abuse policy took effect May 5, 2024, targeting content placed on a site to exploit its ranking signal. Google's publisher documentation lays out the policy itself. It did not ban a word list. It targeted the behavior that produces the same hollow, uncited content the phrases hint at.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Google flag AI content?
Google does not flag content for being AI-generated. There is no detection signal and no penalty tied to how a page was produced. What Google's systems respond to is unhelpful content, whether a person or a model wrote it: no sourced claims, no specific answers, no evidence the author did the work. A carefully sourced AI-assisted article ranks. A vague human-written one does not.
What are some common AI phrases to avoid?
The ones that stand in for a fact. "Studies show" and "experts agree" without a source. Intensifiers like "truly" or "essential" that add emphasis instead of information. Hedges like "it depends on a variety of factors" that never name the factor. Transitions like "moreover" and "in today's digital world" that delay the point. Any statistic without a link.
Why is my content flagged as AI?
It is usually flagged for being generic, not for the words. The paragraphs make claims a reader cannot verify, cite nothing, and answer the question in the vaguest possible terms. Fix those three issues and the pattern detection stops finding anything to grab. The phrases were the symptom; the missing facts were the cause.
Stop writing articles. Start shipping them.
This article was researched, written and published by GrowGanic, which does the same on a business's own site: it picks the searches the business can win, writes the articles and publishes them on WordPress, Shopify, HubSpot or a hosted blog. The first article is free at growganic.io.
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