Originally published on pixelary.studio.

Short version

  • Most generated sites share the same twelve tells across colour, layout, type, copy and detail.
  • Fix copy and the hero first: they are seen by everyone and cost the least to change.
  • Then colour and type, then real product imagery, then the details.

You do not need a detector to spot a generated website. You need about five seconds. The same patterns show up again and again because models learned from the same web and return its average. Here are the twelve we see most often, grouped by where they live, and the order we would fix them in.

Colour

  1. A blue-to-purple or violet-to-pink gradient behind the hero, often with a soft glow.
  2. Gradient text on the key word of the headline.
  3. Every surface slightly tinted, so nothing is actually white or black and no colour has a job.

Layout

  1. A centred headline, a centred subhead and two centred buttons, then three feature cards in a row.
  2. Cards inside cards, each with a rounded icon tile in the corner.
  3. Sections with identical spacing and weight, so nothing on the page is more important than anything else.

Type and detail

  1. One sans serif at two weights for everything, from the headline to the footer.
  2. Small uppercase labels with wide letter spacing above every heading.
  3. A pulsing “New” badge, sparkle emojis or a glowing border that has nothing to announce.

Copy and proof

  1. Headlines built from verbs like supercharge, unlock, elevate or revolutionise.
  2. Abstract 3D shapes or floating dashboards instead of the real product.
  3. Testimonials without full names, faces or companies, and stats that are suspiciously round.

One or two of these on their own are fine. Four or more and buyers read the whole site as unconsidered, and that has a cost. We explain why in How AI slop design is killing your brand.

What to fix first

Not every tell is equal. Fix them in the order that changes the most for the least work.

  1. The headline and subhead. Everyone reads them and they cost nothing to change. Say who it is for and what changes, with a specific detail a competitor could not copy.
  2. The hero visual. Replace abstract shapes with a real screen of your product doing its main job.
  3. Colour. Remove the gradient, pick one colour and give it one job: the main action.
  4. Type. Keep your body face, but add one deliberate choice, such as a display face or a mono for numbers.
  5. Proof. Real names, real logos, real numbers, or nothing. Fake proof is worse than none.
  6. Detail. Remove decoration that does not explain anything, then add one signature detail you repeat everywhere.

A five-minute test you can run today

Take a screenshot of your homepage and your three closest competitors. Blur the logos. Show them to someone outside the company and ask which one is yours. If they hesitate, the design is not doing its job yet.

For a fuller picture, our Taste Audit runs your product and site through ten checks and redesigns one key screen in a week. For the bigger picture of what to change and why, read How to stand out in the age of AI design, or see a generated dashboard turned into a product in the Evenly case study.