Artificial intelligence has been reshaping the way we optimise websites and create content—but not all change is good. While AI has brought efficiency, it’s also opened the door to a new wave of manipulation tactics. One of the most concerning trends? AI poisoning. And it’s bringing back a black hat mindset that many thought was long gone.

Let’s break down what AI poisoning means, how it’s being used, and what it could mean for your SEO strategy moving forward.

What Is AI Poisoning?

AI poisoning refers to the deliberate manipulation of AI systems by feeding them misleading, low-quality, or malicious data. The aim? To influence what these systems learn, skew how they respond, or gain unfair visibility in search results—especially those powered by generative AI.

In the SEO space, this tactic is being used to trick AI into citing unreliable sources or giving preference to certain sites, often without the user realising it. Essentially, it’s the modern version of stuffing keywords, cloaking, and other outdated tactics—just in an AI-driven context.

This technique becomes especially dangerous as search engines increasingly rely on AI-generated summaries (like Google’s AI Overviews) to deliver answers directly on the results page.

How AI Poisoning Is Being Used in Search

Some black hat SEO practitioners are deliberately seeding content with misleading information or spinning up fake websites that target specific AI models. Others are flooding the web with templated, AI-generated pages loaded with keywords, hoping that these pages influence the datasets used to train large language models (LLMs).

The goal? To increase the chances of being cited in AI Overviews or other AI-driven features—even if the content itself lacks credibility or depth.

In other cases, low-quality content farms might mass-produce “helpful-looking” information with the sole intent of manipulating AI summarisation tools, not actual human readers.

Why It Matters for Your SEO Strategy

If AI models start citing manipulated content or low-authority sources, it could lead to a breakdown in trust. More importantly for businesses, it creates an uneven playing field. Brands investing in high-quality, ethical SEO might find themselves outranked—or outcited—by pages that game the system.

Here’s why this trend should be on your radar:

● Trust is at risk: Users rely on AI Overviews for quick answers. If those answers are based on bad data, it damages credibility—for Google and your business.

● Ethical SEO becomes harder: Competing with spammy tactics puts pressure on ethical businesses to keep up, even if they’re doing everything right.

● Google will respond: Just as Google clamped down on old-school black hat tactics, it’s likely they’ll continue refining how AI Overviews and LLMs evaluate content quality.

Ready to build an SEO strategy that doesn’t rely on gimmicks?

Let’s talk. We’ll help you create content that not only ranks—but earns trust in both traditional search and AI-powered results.