It's AI-generated with a fake author - the rise of one of Wollongong's most searched websites
It's built on the trusted wollongong2022.com.au url, but is everything as it seems?
This edition of Future Proof is brought to you with the support of Colliers Wollongong.
Have you ever heard of Maxine Harper?
She’s a passionate local advocate, dedicated to showcasing the vibrant culture and lifestyle of our beautiful coastal city.
And she’s the sole author of dozens of articles about Wollongong on the Wollongong Life guide website, which you can find at wollongong2022.com.au.
But is that really Wollongong in the pictures on the website?
Tourism and technology professor at the University of Queensland, Professor Pierre Benckendorff, isn’t convinced.
“I’m fairly certain that the person that claims to be behind the site is not real,” Professor Benckendorff tells The Pulse.
She’s completely made up.
So how did a fake, AI-generated website come to take over the official digital home of the largest sports event to ever come to the Illawarra?
And what does this mean in a world where the line between real and fake, authentic and generated is vanishing into a trillion tiny pixels?
The digital half-life of Wollongong 2022
Just over three years ago, Wollongong 2022 was on the world’s lips. In August, during the UCI world road bike championships, searches for Wollongong surged, according to Google Trends data. That year, the 8th most searched query to do with Wollongong was “wollongong 2022”.
The page Google directed searchers to was wollongong2022.com.au, the official website for the global event.
Driving this page to the top of the list were the many other websites that link to this site, including newspaper articles, Wikipedia pages and official tourism information boards.
Sometime after the event wrapped up, and as the corporate vehicle for the event, Wollongong 2022 Ltd was deregistered in June 2024, the rights to the URL went up for grabs.
But while the slick design and professionally crafted content of the original website may have disappeared, all the links from those other websites did not.
Today, Wikipedia still lists wollongong2022.com.au as the “official website” of the event, as do sites such as Destination NSW, local news websites and international cycling forums.
This means that due to the way the Google search algorithm functions, wollongong2022.com.au is still on the first page of Google search results for queries related to “Wollongong 2022”.
And a man in Victoria by the name of Tony Simon is getting all those clicks.
Speaking to The Pulse, Mr Simon, who runs a web design business, said he purchased the URL via an auction for expired domains and built a new website, including creating Maxine Harper, using generative AI.
As part of his business, Mr Simon offers search engine optimisation services, and said he intends to turn wollongong2022.com.au into a directory website, providing highly-ranked links to his clientele of tradies and small businesses so their websites appear highly in Google search results.
While the services that Mr Simon offers are relatively benign, online forums are abounding with tips on how to use the technique to promote online gambling and other content.
Authentic experiences or AI-slop?
The purchase of in-demand web domains and their repurposing to redirect clicks is not new, and major event websites can offer an easy and lucrative target due to the high level of interest over a short period.
But what is new is the ease at which new, seemingly accurate content can be created with the rise of generative AI tools.
In this case, the issue is that travellers who have never been to Wollongong may stumble across the website and believe what is on the site is real, Professor Benckendorff said.
“You’ve got the mountain in the background and the waterfall and the beach, but that place doesn’t actually exist. All of those things exist in Wollongong, but not from the perspective shown in that image, which makes it look much more like a paradise than what it actually is.”
That inevitably leads to dissatisfaction.
Destination Wollongong general manager Jeremy Wilshire told The Pulse Illawarra the site highlighted the value of real expertise.
“Much of the content references real places in Wollongong, but I did notice a few inconsistencies,” he said.
“Some articles seem to reference locations that don’t exist, and others present themselves as guides or recommendations but don’t list specific businesses. It highlights one of the challenges with AI-generated SEO content - it can appear authoritative but may lack depth or local accuracy.”
But while it’s a case in the marketing industry that if you’re not using AI, you’re being left behind, the scale and velocity of AI content production are forcing a rethink of how the digital information economy functions.
Wollongong sibling marketing whizzes Ruby and Leroy Soeterboek, who run the Beans Marketing agency, said some clients now expect AI to be used in the preparation of materials, due to the volume and speed at which content can be created.
“It’s part of this phase of business,” Ruby said.
According to marketing software platform Hubspot, in 2026, 80 per cent of marketers use AI for content creation, and 75 per cent use it for media production.
At Beans, AI is used for administrative and drafting tasks, but there are some areas that are irreplaceable, such as understanding a client’s particular needs.
“That is the real skill, having that human connection, empathy, really understanding emotional behaviours and connections,” Ruby said.
There’s definitely an element I don’t think AI will replace.
The practice of repurposing old URLs for gaming search results also reveals how what was once unlimited, highly efficient access to the most vast collection of information humanity had ever assembled was being reduced to essentially fake reviews for online poker machines.
With dissatisfied consumers now turning to AI instead of Google to plan trips and make purchases, Leroy said the power of authenticity in communication will be greater than ever, Leroy said.
“The best performing content that we see for our clients is them on camera, speaking to the camera, sometimes shot on an iPhone.”
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