Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How many pages for a new site for Google to sink it's teeth into
-
Hello,
I've got a high traffic site I'm building. Is 20 articles enough to start or should I start with 40 or 60 to not flop? I've got good internal linking. I've got:
3 10X articles
17 cornerstonesso far.
Worked hard so far. Do I launch? or wait for 40? 60? I know thousands is best. Competitors have much more.
Thank you,
Bob
-
@BobGW said in How many pages for a new site for Google to sink it's teeth into:
Hello,
I've got a high traffic site I'm building. Is 20 articles enough to start or should I start with 40 or 60 to not flop? I've got good internal linking. I've got:
3 10X articles
17 cornerstones
so far.
Worked hard so far. Do I launch? or wait for 40? 60? I know thousands is best. Competitors have much more.
Thank you,You’re in a great position to launch with the 20 articles you have, especially with 3 10X articles and 17 cornerstone pieces. Quality matters more than quantity, and your focus on strong internal linking and content depth is key. While competitors may have thousands of articles, your strategy should be to launch now and continue adding high-quality content consistently. Don’t wait for 40 or 60 articles—start now, monitor performance, and grow from there. Quality content combined with a consistent content plan will help you succeed over time. I fyou still confuse learn more
-
Thank you for your replies. Is there anything else besides internal linking, 50 first links, and on-site SEO that I need to keep in mind that's out of the normal ballpark?
Thank you.
-
"I’d recommend focusing on building quality content first. For example, my soccer online games website, which started with just a few detailed articles on online soccer games, soon grew to include game reviews, player stats, and strategy guides. This variety attracted more traffic and helped us rank higher. It's not just about quantity, but relevance and regular updates. Once you have a solid base, gradually increase your content, just like we did, and consider adding backlinks to boost authority over time."
-
@BobGW said in How many pages for a new site for Google to sink it's teeth into:
Hello,
I've got a high traffic site I'm building. Is 20 articles enough to start or should I start with 40 or 60 to not flop? I've got good internal linking. I've got:
3 10X articles
17 cornerstones
so far.
Worked hard so far. Do I launch? or wait for 40? 60? I know thousands is best. Competitors have much more."I’d recommend focusing on building quality content first. For example, my soccer online games website, which started with just a few detailed articles on online soccer games, soon grew to include game reviews, player stats, and strategy guides. This variety attracted more traffic and helped us rank higher. It's not just about quantity, but relevance and regular updates. Once you have a solid base, gradually increase your content, just like we did, and consider adding backlinks to boost authority over time."
-
For a new website, it's ideal to have at least 10-20 well-optimized pages to help Google crawl and index effectively. Consistent content updates and quality pages improve visibility in search results over time.
-
20 well-optimised articles with good internal linking and a mix of 10X and cornerstone content is a solid start! Quality trumps quantity, especially for a new site. If your articles are highly valuable and target relevant keywords, Google can begin indexing and ranking your site effectively.
I think you don’t need to wait for 40 or 60 articles. Focus on publishing consistently post-launch while promoting your existing content to build authority. Competitors may have more, but even a smaller site can compete with exceptional content and strong SEO practices.
-
@BobGW said in How many pages for a new site for Google to sink it's teeth into:
Hello,
I've got a high traffic site I'm building. Is 20 articles enough to start or should I start with 40 or 60 to not flop? I've got good internal linking. I've got:
3 10X articles
17 cornerstones
so far.
Worked hard so far. Do I launch? or wait for 40? 60? I know thousands is best. Competitors have much more.
Thank you,
BobHi Bob,
20 articles with good internal linking is a solid start, especially with 10X and cornerstone content. You can launch now and continue adding more articles over time. Focus on quality and consistency, and you’ll build up traffic as you grow. Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Write new articles or republish old ones?
Hi,
Content Development | | Enrico_Cassinelli
we run a tourism information website about a region in italy, and each year, during special occasions such as christmas, easter and so on we publish an article with a "what to do on Christmas / Easter / .... in the Langhe" (collecting events, activities, etc.). Is it better to "reuse" the old articles and change only the year in the title and of course the content (providing that we are gonna keep the URL without year), or to publish a new one? thanks!0 -
Best SEO Structure For E-Commerce With Products Using Multiple Categories
Hi all, I am in the process of re-structuring my e-commerce website for better SEO and user experience. I have done some keyword research and would like some advice on how best to structure my site around those keywords. For example, my site (All Things Nature) sells a brand of wooden sculptures (Woodsculp) and I would like to rank for keywords related to that brand, the brand by animal, the brand by collection and the brand by release date.
Content Development | | nb2e4fg
Examples of keywords could be: Brand by Animal: Woodsculp Dogs, Woodsculp Cats, Woodsculp Elephants
Brand by Collection: Woodsculp Pets, Woodsculp Safari
Brand by Release Date: Woodsculp Christmas 2023, Woodsculp Summer 2022 I would create each of these keywords as a category so that they can be found by a search engine and by users. I would then structure as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Pets
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Summer 2022 The only problem with this structure is it would take more than 3 clicks (4) for the user to reach a product. How critical is this for good SEO and user experience? Would I be better off getting rid of the ‘Woodsculp by Animal’, ‘Woodsculp by Collection’ and ‘Woodsculp by Release Date’ categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The only thing with this is there would be a lot of categories under the brand name which might make it more difficult for search engines and users to logically follow. Would I be better off getting rid of the brand category and replace them with the keyword categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 This would organise things more logically but I would then lose the brand category (and the potential of the brand keyword ranking?) Would I be better off choosing one main keyword to use as a category and then use tags for the other categories? Categories: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants Tags: Woodsculp Safari
Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The next issue I have is that I have products which could fall under several different categories. A product called Elijah Elephant, for example could fall under Woodsculp Elephants, Woodsculp Safari and Woodsculp Summer 2022. In previous e-commerce sites I have never assigned multiple categories to one product (I instead have used tags). Is it good practice to organise products under multiple categories for an e-commerce site? Thanks in advance for any help and advice.0 -
What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity?
Hello everyone, Maybe it is a stupid question, but I ask to the experts... What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity from those noindexed pages? For example, let's say I have many pages that look similar to a "main" page which I solely want to appear on Google, so I want to noindex all pages with the exception of that "main" page... but, what if I also want to transfer any possible link equity present on the noindexed pages to the main page? The only solution I have thought is to add a canonical tag pointing to the main page on those noindexed pages... but will that work or cause wreak havoc in some way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau3 -
Can too many "noindex" pages compared to "index" pages be a problem?
Hello, I have a question for you: our website virtualsheetmusic.com includes thousands of product pages, and due to Panda penalties in the past, we have no-indexed most of the product pages hoping in a sort of recovery (not yet seen though!). So, currently we have about 4,000 "index" page compared to about 80,000 "noindex" pages. Now, we plan to add additional 100,000 new product pages from a new publisher to offer our customers more music choice, and these new pages will still be marked as "noindex, follow". At the end of the integration process, we will end up having something like 180,000 "noindex, follow" pages compared to about 4,000 "index, follow" pages. Here is my question: can this huge discrepancy between 180,000 "noindex" pages and 4,000 "index" pages be a problem? Can this kind of scenario have or cause any negative effect on our current natural SEs profile? or is this something that doesn't actually matter? Any thoughts on this issue are very welcome. Thank you! Fabrizio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Creating 100,000's of pages, good or bad idea
Hi Folks, Over the last 10 months we have focused on quality pages but have been frustrated with competition websites out ranking us because they have bigger sites. Should we focus on the long tail again? One option for us is to take every town across the UK and create pages using our activities. e.g. Stirling
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PottyScotty
Stirling paintball
Stirling Go Karting
Stirling Clay shooting We are not going to link to these pages directly from our main menus but from the site map. These pages would then show activities that were in a 50 mile radius of the towns. At the moment we have have focused our efforts on Regions, e.g. Paintball Scotland, Paintball Yorkshire focusing all the internal link juice to these regional pages, but we don't rank high for towns that the activity sites are close to. With 45,000 towns and 250 activities we could create over a million pages which seems very excessive! Would creating 500,000 of these types of pages damage our site? This is my main worry, or would it make our site rank even higher for the tougher keywords and also get lots of traffic from the long tail like we used to get. Is there a limit to how big a site should be? edit0 -
Is there any negative SEO effect of having comma's in URL's?
Hello, I have a client who has a large ecommerce website. Some category names have been created with comma's in - which has meant that their software has automatically generated URL's with comma's in for every page that comes beneath the category in the site hierarchy. eg. 1 : http://shop.deliaonline.com/store/music,-dvd-and-games/dvds-and-blu_rays/ eg. 2 : http://shop.deliaonline.com/store/music,-dvd-and-games/dvds-and-blu_rays/action-and-adventure/ etc... I know that URL's with comma's in look a bit ugly! But is there 'any' SEO reason why URL's with comma's in are any less effective? Kind Regs, RB
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichBestSEO0 -
Is 404'ing a page enough to remove it from Google's index?
We set some pages to 404 status about 7 months ago, but they are still showing in Google's index (as 404's). Is there anything else I need to do to remove these?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0