Cheap SEO articles can damage your rankings. Learn when hiring freelancers for SEO writing makes sense, what it really costs, and how to avoid content that hurts your site.
With Fiverr offering English articles for as low as $5 per article, it can be tempting to outsource your SEO content and move on with your life. I even saw the other day an incredible offer: 30 articles for $30. Coincidentally, exactly the number you need to unlock Google Ads certification. What a bargain, right? Right?? Well… not exactly.
Yes, I bought the package. Mostly out of curiosity, and well? What wouldn't I do for content...
I received the articles within a week. Fast delivery. No complaints there.
Made in India — which I initially assumed explained the price — but I was quickly reminded that $1 per article is not a good price anywhere on the planet, but also and foremost, Made by AI.
And if you’re on this blog, you know we have nothing against AI. On the contrary, I imagine a future where the human-AI weddings will be celebrated … (Alright, I’m kidding. Please don’t quote me on that.) The real issue wasn’t that AI was used. It was how badly it was prompted.
At first glance, the articles looked passable. Keywords sprinkled in. But the moment I tried to edit them, the cracks showed. Sentences didn’t connect. Ideas jumped randomly. Fillers appeared for no reason. Words like “basically”, “actually”, “I think” were injected in places where no one would ever put them.
Here’s a real excerpt (unaltered):
Kanji for peace connects to people who value life harmony. Kanji strength stands for resilience in life basically. Picking kanji tattoo is not a shallow task actually. It must reflect the deeper truth of oneself.
This is not “bad English.” This is semantic nonsense. And here’s the important part: Google can tell and so can your readers.
Low-quality AI content doesn’t just fail to rank. It can actively harm your domain.
Google has been very explicit about this through its Helpful Content system: content that is thin, unoriginal, or written for search engines instead of humans is algorithmically devalued.
Sites hit by quality signals often experience:
This isn’t theoretical. SEO agencies routinely report that cleaning up low-quality content takes months and often requires deleting more pages than you keep. In other words: Bad content is worse than no content.
Let’s talk real numbers. Some might have chucked at my $1/article experiment, and concluded that they might find better quality from 5$ or even 10$. I also ordered articles from Argentina and Venuezuela around these two prices ranges. The results were better, but still far from what I would consider “good SEO writing.”
A realistic range today:
These price range make absolute sense when you think about the man and machine powers behind a good article. Good SEO writing isn’t generating random words. It’s:
Cheap freelancers don’t do that — not because they’re lazy, but because the economics make it impossible. The freelancer obviously has no time to do research or to try to understand the specific brand needs.
At $1–$5 per article, the only viable workflow is:
If your product is early, fragile, or still evolving: write your own content.
Raw, honest founder content often outperforms polished but empty articles.
If writing scares you, use AI as an assistant, not a replacement: Draft with AI, inject personal insight and humanize your content. Hybrid content beats cheap outsourcing every time.
If your business is already live, validated, and generating revenue, SEO becomes a long-term asset. In that case, outsourcing can make sense — if done correctly.
Practical rules when hiring on Fiverr or Upwork:
Think of freelancers as extensions of your voice, not content vending machines.