Google’s search advocate John Mueller recently addressed confusion surrounding programmatic SEO and technical SEO, stressing that the two are fundamentally different. While technical SEO remains a critical practice for ensuring content is accessible and understandable to search engines, programmatic SEO has faced criticism for its association with low-quality content production.
In a statement on Reddit, Mueller explicitly said, “I wouldn’t lump programmatic SEO together with technical SEO.” He elaborated that technical SEO is focused on optimizing websites so that valuable content can be crawled, indexed, and interpreted correctly by search engines. “Technical SEO—making great online content crawlable, indexable, and understandable—will definitely continue to be important,” he added.
Mueller also emphasized the limits of artificial intelligence within SEO processes, noting, “No ‘AI’ can understand or send users to a website that is not accessible.” This underlines the ongoing need for foundational technical SEO measures regardless of advances in AI.
Reflecting on his views from two years ago, Mueller characterized programmatic SEO as often synonymous with spammy or low-value content. He described it as a quick, inexpensive way to produce large volumes of content primarily aimed at ranking well in Google’s search results, but offering minimal real value to users. Content created through such methods likely violates Google’s policies against abusive large-scale content generation.
This clarification from Google highlights the company’s continued commitment to distinguishing sustainable SEO practices that prioritize user experience from manipulative tactics that rely on quantity over quality to achieve rankings.
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