Does your website look AI-generated?
Eight marks give away a website built from the defaults. In ten seconds you'll know which ones are in your source code.
Free · no sign-up
One check per day and device. We read your public home page source and do not store the address.
Loading and checking the page …
The eight marks, one by one
Each one is measurable in the source, each one has a reason, and for each one there is something that carries better in its place.
-
Colours from the default palette
- How to spot it
- Values such as #8b5cf6, #a855f7 or #6366f1 sit unchanged in Tailwind and Bootstrap. The check looks for sixteen of them in the source and in the stylesheets.
- Why it stands out
- Whoever uses them did not mix a colour, they left the default in place. Two sites on the same default read like two editions of one product, even though they have nothing to do with each other.
- What carries instead
- Mix one colour yourself, and only one. A tone that belongs to the trade carries a whole site. Everything beside it may be grey in five steps.
-
Gradient text
- How to spot it
- background-clip: text on a heading. The word runs from blue into violet.
- Why it stands out
- This is the most visible tell of a generated landing page. On top of that sits a practical problem: contrast can no longer be measured cleanly on a gradient, and at small sizes the text becomes hard to read.
- What carries instead
- Set a single word in italics. The accent holds at every size, on every screen and in black and white print.
-
Too many gradients
- How to spot it
- The check counts linear-gradient, radial-gradient and conic-gradient and subtracts masks and patterns. It flags from thirteen decorative gradients upward.
- Why it stands out
- One gradient sets an accent, twenty set none. Shrink the page to thumbnail size: if every section has its own gradient, every section looks the same.
- What carries instead
- Surfaces that differ because their content differs. One gradient per page is an accent, twelve are wallpaper.
-
The coloured bar on the left of the card
- How to spot it
- border-left of two to nine pixels in a colour, usually on a lightly tinted tile.
- Why it stands out
- It sits in every builder. On a block quote the bar is classic typography and means something. On a card it is decoration pretending to mean something.
- What carries instead
- Let the card differ through its content. If three cards matter equally, they do not need three colours.
-
A single default typeface
- How to spot it
- The check reads every font-family in the source. It flags when exactly one family is left and that family is Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Poppins, Montserrat, Lato or Nunito.
- Why it stands out
- The typeface is not the problem, the default is. These seven sit at the top of every picker. Anyone using one of them as their only face never asked the question about type.
- What carries instead
- Either two families, cleanly split between heading and body, or a single one that was actually chosen. This page runs on a single family and still does not flag, because that family sits in no default.
-
Soft glowing blobs
- How to spot it
- blur() with two or three digit pixel values. The check flags from four such surfaces upward.
- Why it stands out
- The coloured blob with sixty pixels of blur behind the content contributes nothing. It glows, and it makes sections interchangeable, because it looks the same everywhere.
- What carries instead
- Space. A calm surface with enough air reads as more expensive than any spotlight, and it costs nothing in load time.
-
Dashes in the copy
- How to spot it
- En dash or em dash between two spaces in the visible text. Ranges between digits and hyphens inside words do not count.
- Why it stands out
- The dash between spaces is the favourite punctuation of language models. A text with forty of them reads dictated, not written.
- What carries instead
- A full stop, a comma or a colon. They do the same work without drawing attention. This page carries no dash of that kind at all.
-
Filler phrases
- How to spot it
- Fifteen words and phrases in German and English: seamless, holistic, tailor-made, innovative, added value, at eye level, from a single source, synergies, cutting-edge, game-changing and a few relatives.
- Why it stands out
- Words that sit in every second text and mean something in none of them. They fill a line without telling the reader anything about you.
- What carries instead
- A sentence with a number, a name or a case in it. Anything that is equally true of your competitor can go.
What the check sees and what it does not
Eight of the criteria can be measured in the source. The rest needs a browser that actually renders the page.
Checked here
- Colours from the default palette
- Gradient text
- Number of gradients
- Coloured bar to the left of cards
- A single default typeface
- Soft glowing blobs
- Dashes in the copy
- Filler phrases
Needs a browser
- Contrast of type against its surface
- Horizontal scrolling on a phone
- Visible focus for keyboard use
- Behaviour under reduced motion
- Loading time and image sizes
Whether your copy answers the questions a prospect asks is what the AEO check is for. Invisible characters in a draft are found by the character checker.
Default or decision
No single mark is a mistake in itself. The difference is whether somebody chose it or whether it simply stayed.
| Left standing | Decided |
|---|---|
| Violet #8b5cf6, because it sat at the top of the list | A tone that belongs to the trade, mixed once and used everywhere |
| The heading runs in a gradient | A single word in italics carries the accent |
| Every card gets a coloured bar | Cards differ through their content |
| Inter for heading, body and button | A typeface that belongs to the voice of the brand |
| Glowing blobs behind every section | Space and a calm surface |
| “Holistic solutions at eye level” | “Four weeks from enquiry to live” |
Where the criteria come from
Every template here goes through a catalogue of 25 criteria and 35 test questions before it is published. Four scripts measure what can be measured. The rest we look at by hand at 390, 768 and 1440 pixels.
From that same catalogue, this tool takes the questions the source code can answer.
Why we work this way The design chapters of the documentation See all templates
What to do with the result
Three routes, depending on how much you want to touch yourself.
Reference
How to spot a site built from the defaults
An AI builds websites from what it has seen most often. The result is rarely wrong and almost always the same. These marks sit as values in the source, which is why they can be counted.
The violet gradient is the default
A gradient between violet and indigo is the default value in many generators and builders. It is not ugly, it is simply a giveaway. We only report it when the hue does not come from a known palette, because Tailwind and Bootstrap carry the same values for a different reason.
Three cards side by side, always with an icon
The trio of cards with icon, heading and two lines of text is the most common building block there is. It is serviceable, but it says nothing a list would not say too. Where it appears three times on one page, nobody thought about the arrangement.
The coloured left border on a surface
A box with a coloured stripe down the left is the kit version of emphasis. On a quotation it is right, that is what it has meant since printing began. On a card, a note or a price it is decoration without a statement.
Shadows that do not exist in reality
A shadow tells you how high something sits above the surface. If every card carries the same soft shadow, everything sits at the same height and the information is wasted. We count how many distinct shadow steps a page uses, because a single step for everything is the pattern.
The word marquee
A marquee of words forces reading at the wrong pace and is almost impossible to grab on a phone. As a logo strip a marquee is fine, there the logos are images and the eye skips anyway. With words it is movement without purpose.
Counting numbers
A number that counts up as you scroll is a claim with an animation. It usually stands there without a source, and anyone who wants to check it finds nothing. A backed number with a year beside it lands harder than any movement.
Every section the same height, every heading the same size
An even rhythm across the whole page says that all sections matter equally. That is never true. Where something matters more it may take more room and more size, and the rest grows calmer for it.
What the check does not see
We read the source, not the rendered picture. Contrast, overflow, keyboard focus and the real arrangement on a phone need an actual browser. What stands here are the marks that sit as values in the code, and we claim nothing beyond that.
A high score is not good design
The score says how distinctive the building blocks are, not whether the page sells. A completely original page can still talk past its customer. Take the result as a list of places where somebody left a default in.
Common questions about the check
Eight marks by which builder design can be spotted in the source: colours from the Tailwind or Bootstrap default palette, gradient text, the number of gradients, coloured bars to the left of cards, a single default typeface, soft glowing blobs, dashes in the copy and filler phrases. Every one of them is described in full above.
Everything you need to actually render the page for: contrast, horizontal scrolling on a phone, keyboard use and load time. That needs a real browser. The check reads the source and claims nothing beyond it.
From the catalogue we test every one of our own templates against before publishing. It has 25 criteria and 35 test questions, eight of which can be measured in the source and sit in this tool.
Ten points means none of the eight marks flagged. Every flagged mark costs points. The number is not a quality verdict on your website, it is an answer to exactly one question: how much of this looks like a default.
No. The address is used for the check and not stored afterwards. We only count how often the check runs per day, so that it is not overloaded.
Not necessarily. Some marks are deliberate decisions: a hand-mixed violet is a brand, the violet from the default is a decision nobody made. The check tells you where to look, not what to do.
Yes. It reads the publicly available source of your home page, whatever it was built with. On pages that load their content only in the browser it sees less, because less of it sits in the source.
Three routes are open: fix it yourself along the design chapters of the documentation, take a template released against this exact catalogue, or have it done with the AI Website Service.
Read on
- Website DNA in twelve questions A second tool for AI websites. It tells you which template fits your brand.
- The marketplace 48 templates in seven categories, each with a preview and screenshots.
- The documentation Eleven chapters from unpacking to going live. Freely readable without a purchase.
- Who this is made for Build it yourself or have it built, and how you tell which one fits you.
- Why we exist What bothers us about average design and what we build instead.
Other free tools
Each answers one question about your website, in under a minute, without an account.
Your next web project
Build on a strong foundation.
Website, design rules and seven skills in one package. Explore templates for your next project.
- Complete page structure
- Seven skills included
- German and English
All of this is already done in a template
48 finished industry websites, each with built-in knowledge and seven skills. Structure, copy, structured data and llms.txt are set before you change a single thing.
- A complete website with every subpage, fully written
- Seven skills to guide your AI tool
- The complete code as a ZIP, yours forever
One payment, everything included. We show this at most once.