Thin content
Pages with little or no unique, valuable content for users.
What is Thin content?
Thin content refers to pages that provide little to no value to users. This includes pages with very short content, auto-generated content, doorway pages, and pages that largely duplicate content from other sources.
Google's algorithms specifically target thin content. Pages lacking substance may not rank or could trigger manual actions. Thin content can also affect site-wide rankings through the Helpful Content System.
Why Thin content matters
Thin content wastes crawl budget and can harm site-wide rankings. It provides poor user experience and fails to establish expertise. Removing or improving thin content often results in rankings improvements for the entire site.
How to implement
Audit your site for thin pages
Improve content with valuable information
Consolidate similar thin pages
noindex or remove pages that can't be improved
Avoid auto-generating large numbers of pages
Ensure every page serves a clear purpose
Common mistakes to avoid
- Creating pages for every keyword variation
- Publishing minimum viable content
- Generating pages from database without added value
- Having many near-duplicate category pages
Examples
100-word blog posts with generic information
Product pages with only specs, no descriptions
Location pages with just swapped city names
Frequently asked questions
There's no specific word count. A 200-word page can be complete if it fully answers the query. Focus on comprehensiveness rather than arbitrary word counts.
If the page serves a legitimate purpose and can be made valuable, improve it. If it exists only for SEO and can't be made useful, delete or noindex it.