5 Tells That Give Away an AI-Written Website

By Dakota Hagler, web designer at HaglerDesigns (Longview, TX)

Two years into the ChatGPT era, and it is now a specific pastime for some of us to open a small business website and immediately tell you which paragraphs were written by a human and which came out of a language model wholesale.

Sometimes it is subtle. Sometimes the website’s own bakery is described as an “innovative culinary experience committed to unparalleled quality.” Which is fine, if the bakery is a boardroom deck. It is not fine if the bakery is a bakery.

Here are the five tells that give away an AI-written website faster than a WordPress default theme.

Tell #1: The em-dash blizzard

Language models love the em dash. They will use it three times in one paragraph — because it feels literary — without any earthly reason to use it. Actual humans use em dashes occasionally. AI uses them like commas.

Open the “About” page of a website you suspect. Count the em dashes in the first three paragraphs. If it is more than three, put a pin in it. Not proof by itself, but a strong tell.

Nobody who writes their own website copy is thinking “this sentence needs three em dashes.” They are thinking “how do I get this open by Thursday.”

Tell #2: The word “delve” and its friends

“Delve.” “Navigate.” “Foster.” “Elevate.” “Robust.” “Bespoke.” “Seamless.” “Curated.” “Innovative.” “Streamlined.” “Empower.”

Any one of these words, on its own, is fine. A homepage that uses six of them in the first two paragraphs was probably written by a machine or by a marketing intern who was told to sound “professional” and had never sold anything to a real human.

Bonus points if the same site’s “About” page uses “curated” to describe an inventory of three products, or “bespoke” to describe a service that is neither custom nor tailored.

Tell #3: The fake nuance

ChatGPT-written paragraphs love the shape “X. However, it is also important to remember Y. Both are essential to a well-rounded approach.” That structure is designed to sound thoughtful. In practice it says nothing.

Compare:

• AI: “While a fast website is essential, it is also critical to remember that user engagement, quality content, and brand consistency all play equally important roles. A well-rounded approach considers all of these factors.”
• Human: “Speed matters. So does having something worth reading. Fix the speed first, then work on the content.”

Same idea. Very different smell.

Tell #4: The tripled-up bullet

AI copy loves bullet lists where every bullet has three parallel adjectives. “Faster, smarter, more efficient.” “Robust, scalable, and secure.” “Curated, thoughtful, and truly bespoke.”

Humans do not naturally speak in triads. When you see them stacked up, one after another, on every bullet in a list, that is the model’s rhythm coming through the paragraph.

Tell #5: The “in today’s fast-paced world” opener

Or one of its cousins: “In an increasingly digital landscape…” “As technology continues to evolve…” “In the modern era…” “Amidst the ever-changing marketplace…”

These are the throat-clearing openers a language model produces to warm up. No human writing about their own plumbing company on their own website starts a paragraph with “In an increasingly digital landscape.” They start with “We fix slab leaks.”

Why customers can tell (even without articulating it)

You have probably had this experience: you open a small business website and something feels off. You cannot say what it is. But you also do not want to hire the business. That feeling has a name now: it is the uncanny valley of business writing.

Customers — especially in East Texas, where plainspoken is the water we swim in — are highly attuned to authenticity. When your website sounds like a corporate press release, they hear it. When your website sounds like the boss’s voice on the phone, they hear that too. One of those inspires trust. The other does not.

The tells side-by-side

“So I can’t use AI at all?”

You can. Just do not ship what it writes.

AI is great for:

• Getting a draft started when you are staring at a blank screen
• Rewriting a paragraph you already wrote, in a shorter or clearer form
• Bullet-pointing an outline
• Proofreading and catching typos

What it is bad at:

• Sounding like you
• Knowing what you actually care about
• Naming the specific reason a customer should trust you
• Telling the truth about how your business is different, without inventing it

The workflow that works: draft with AI, rewrite by hand, cut the “delves” and the “robusts,” add one specific detail per paragraph that only you would know.

What good handwritten copy sounds like

Here is the “About” opener of a small East Texas HVAC company:

“My grandfather started fixing swamp coolers in Kilgore in 1962. My dad added heat pumps in the 90s. I run the shop now. Same last name. Same phone number since 1988.”

Three sentences. Nobody — no model, no marketer, no AI — would generate that. It is entirely, unmistakably, human. It is also the whole reason someone will call.