Im a freelance writer. fiction mostly but ive been doing more content work lately because bills exist
anyway i wrote a 2000 word article about remote work productivity tips. all original, based on my own experience working from cafes in lisbon for 6 months. very personal anecdotes, specific details, my own voice
client runs it through a detector before publishing (which is their policy now apparently). flags at 62% ai. ok fine ill rewrite some sections. make it more casual, add more of my weird tangents. resubmit. 58%. still too high for them
third rewrite. i basically make it sound unhinged. run on sentences, informal language, contractions everywhere. 44% and the client says thats acceptable but now the article reads terrible and doesnt sound professional at all
so i have two options: write well and get flagged, or write badly and pass detection. this is the state of content in 2026
welcome to the content industry’s dumbest problem. ive been dealing with this for over a year now with my clients. the ones who insist on detection scores are slowly losing their best writers because nobody wants to dumb down their craft to satisfy a flawed algorithm
my approach: i refuse to work with clients who use hard detection thresholds. i explain the limitations upfront, share the research, and if they still insist on a number, we’re not a fit. lost maybe 2 clients over it but kept my sanity
from the seo side of things this is creating a weird market dynamic. agencies are choosing writers based on who can pass detection rather than who writes best. ive seen genuinely good content rejected and mediocre stuff published because it “passed”
the irony is that search engines are rewarding helpful, well-written content. so optimizing for detection scores is actively working against what google wants. its completely backwards
i feel this in my soul. i do marketing copy and the amount of time i now spend on “will this pass detection” vs “is this actually good copy” is insane. like 30% of my process is now detection management instead of actual writing
started adding deliberate imperfections to my first drafts now. leaving in some casual asides, slightly awkward transitions. my writing is objectively worse but it passes. we’ve created a system that punishes good writing
@HugoNomad honestly thinking about doing the same. the mental drain of rewriting perfectly good content just to satisfy an algorithm is not worth the rate im getting paid
@JaxOnFire “detection management” lmao thats exactly what it is. adding it to my linkedin skills
The SEO angle nobody mentions: Google’s helpful content system literally rewards the kind of writing that detectors flag. Clear, well-structured, comprehensive. We’re optimizing for two systems that want opposite things.