Part of Google’s search quality rating guidelines includes evaluating and rating website page quality. According to Google, high quality pages are those that contain “a satisfying amount of high quality main content”. What this means for your website, is the more relevant, high quality content, the better.
The amount of content necessary for a page to have a satisfying amount of content depends on the topic and purpose of the page. Although in general, pages with thin content do not rank well in Google search results. So now you’re wondering, “What the heck is thin content? And once I do find it, what should I do to fix that content?” Read on for tips for solving your thin content woes…
What Is Thin Content?
Thin content pages are pages with less than 400-500 words that do not have a clear focus. Unoptimized pages, duplicate pages and outdated pages can also be considered thin content. Remember, your website is only as useful to your visitors and potential customers as the content is current.
What Should You Should With Thin Content Pages?
There are four strategies for dealing with thin content pages: do nothing, update the pages, redirect the pages, or remove the pages.
1. Do nothing
If the page(s) are well-visited and/or ranking well on Google and other search engines and directories, you may choose not to do anything with those pages. Although you’ll still want to make sure the information on the page is both relevant and up to date.
2. Update the page
Even with pages that have less than 400 words, you will want to make sure the information on the page is current. If the content of the page is relevant but not up to date, update the page to make sure that it is relevant to your current offerings.
If the content is relevant but not detailed enough, add more information about the topic on the page. Make sure that the web page plays a relevant role in converting visitors on your website.
Another advantage to updating the content is that it’s less work than creating new content. And the old pages usually contain some backlinks that you want to keep. When updating a page, you can also add videos, infographics and other content that makes the page more linkworthy.
3. Redirect the page
If you have another page on your website that contains a better version of the same content, you can redirect the thin content page to the rich-content page. This will also help resolve any duplicate content issues.
4. Remove the page
If the content of a page is outdated, no longer applies to your business, or if it makes your business look out of date, it might be a good idea to remove the page from your website.
Although removing the page should only be done if it is not possible to redirect the old page to another page of your website that is up to date.
Review Your Website Content Regularly
Updating or replacing content that doesn’t provide value for your customers is always a good idea. Include checking all links – both links to other pages in your site, and to other websites. Be sure to also check any redirects on your website. You want to avoid any problems caused by a bad redirect.
Read more about Website Maintenance Guidelines.
Additional Resources
More about Google Search Quality Rating Guidelines
How To Improve Google Local Search Results Ranking
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