Time to read: 4 minutes
On August 2, Claude’s parent company, Anthropic, announced that any text generated on Claude will now have an invisible watermark that can’t be removed. And just two weeks later, Google released a new spam update. Coincidence? Knowing Google and how much they love to stir the pot, probably not!
In this blog post, we want to share everything you need to know about how the Claude watermarking system works, why you should care about it in terms of Google’s spam initiatives, and what to do if you’ve been writing content with Claude or working with an agency that does.
Let’s Cut to the Chase: Did Google Really Respond with the August Spam Update?
The recent August 2026 Spam Update that rolled out from August 18 to August 21 seemed to be standard maintenance on Google’s end, but the timing of it leads us to question if it’s in direct response to the watermark.
Google states that their automated systems are always detecting new search spam, so they occasionally make notable improvements to how their systems work. And in Google’s spam policies, AI is, as of now, only mentioned in terms of scaled content abuse and using LLMs to mass-generate pages without any added value.
TDLR; Google’s Hard Stance on AI Content May Be Why We Just Had a Spam Update
Sadly, even when you take the watermarking system out of the equation, Google has already been implementing AI detection. When you look at what Google has shared on the Google Search Central blog relating to guidance on using generative AI content on your website. Google flags scaled content abuse when it perceives:
- Little to no effort
- Little to no originality
- Little to no added value
So, watermarking or not, if you’re using an AI system or tool to generate your content, that’s little to no effort. And since AI writes at the average, you’d also be hitting that little to no originality flag. If both of those things are true, you’d be adding little to no value.
What Data to Check to See If the August Spam Update Impacted Your Site
While this update was quick, it’s already had a big impact on some sites. Here’s a checklist of things to analyze to see if you were targeted:
- Keywords – Have you lost positions for the key terms you are tracking?
- Traffic – Are you seeing dips in organic or direct traffic in GA4?
- Impressions/clicks – Have your impressions and clicks fallen in GSC?
- Leads – Have you suddenly stopped getting calls or form submissions?
- Deindexing – Has Google suddenly started to noindex more pages on your site?
These are just a few of the factors to take into account when assessing whether or not your website could’ve been hit by this update. Keep an eye on all these variables as time passes to see if it was regular turbulence as the update rolled out or real impact.
Revisiting the Claude Watermark: What It Means for Your Content
In the video above, our SEO Director Brian Gorman dives deep into how the watermark works with real examples of how LLMs generate text.
Sadly, the key takeaway is that if you’re publishing AI-generated text, watermarking makes it detectable – and light editing won’t hide it. And as we mentioned in our last blog post, the safest position is the one we’ve always taken at our AI SEO agency: 75% human, 25% AI.
Can’t We Just Edit the Watermark Away?
Now, you’re probably wondering, “Can’t we generate text with AI but then do some editing and some humanizing to evade the system?” With this system in place, doing that is actually going to be really difficult. The reality of this situation is that every level of editing short of a full rewrite still leaves the text detectable. Here’s what Brian’s research found:
This means that the only edit thorough enough to beat the watermark is a rewrite so extensive that it defeats the reason you reached for AI in the first place!
Need Help Recovering from Claude’s Watermark and Google’s AI Backlash?
Whether you already know you’ve gone overboard with AI content on your site or you’ve noticed a recent drop in leads, our team can help. At Sixth City Marketing, we take a hard stance on giving preference to human content, even in the age of AI. Contact our team to get your free quote on how we can help your site recover.
