More pages is good for SEO? Is this true?
-
Hi Guys
I have a question, I was told the more pages I have the better for SEO, Is this true?
-
All in all, more pages would definitely increase your website's authority and provide strong signal about it's topic. So yea, it would better for seo, but only if those pages are valuable to the users - coz creating pages just for the sakes of it, would mean spamming.
-
Hi Justin
I have only found more content to help SEO when that content was of high quality and was what the user needed.
In cases where lots of content has been used without thought of the user, but just going after keywords or locations, then in the long run it has had a negative SEO affect.
-
Good Morning Justin,
The question is rather subjective. In which there is not a clear answer I can give. Carlos is spot on when he says that simply having more pages but without relevant content is a waste.
However, having more quality pages is in fact good.
Let us try to look at 3 cases. Read each one and put in order which sites you would prefer to visit.
Rachel just moved to Worthington which has a very nice well maintained bike path. She is looking for information about the latest bicycles and is considering buying one, but wants to do some research to see if she can bike to work which is 5 miles away from her new home.
- Case 1: A Local bike shop website, worthingtonbycycles.com
This site has about 10 pages, it shows the biking paths, some hot spots, where drinking fountains are and list some of the models and brands they carry in store. - Case 2: A national ecommerce site, everthingbikesonline.com
This site has thousands of pages of products from bicycle tires to customized bicycle seat covers. It talks about different brands and does pricing comparisons. Promises fast shipping and customer service. - Case 3. A bicycle enthusiast site, welovebiking.com
This site also has thousands of pages and has real people talking about a specific brand durability, what modifications can be done, how often they ride and how far they go. If further details up coming trends and show cases break through technologies. It does bike comparisons not only for price but also for value.
Now pretend you're Google, you have only these 3 sites to show the Rachel. Based on what you know about Rachel which site would you return in the number 1, 2 and 3 position?
The answer depends on what exactly Rachel types into the search box. For most all searches I can imagine Rachel typing my answer would be 1, 3, 2. Or 3, 1, 2.
So in this study we find that the small local shop is probably going to out rank the national e commerce site for pretty much anything Rachel may search for. it has less pages but has enough quality to warrant showing it to Rachel. We also see the site by enthusiast is ranking very well it has lots of pages but it also has lots of quality content. The national site didn't rank as well because Rachel isn't concerned about seat covers and tire treed she wants to know about her local commute and what bicycles are best for the distance she has to travel.
If we were to take Rachel out of the picture and just compare the big ecommerce site vs the enthusiast site on a national scale then the enthusiast site wins in most cases where people are looking for information. The caveat is if somebody searches for something very specific like velvet bicycle seat covers model X320. In which case the e commerce site would be the top choice.
I hope that helps and makes sense,
Don
- Case 1: A Local bike shop website, worthingtonbycycles.com
-
Hi Justin,
If the pages are duplicated ones or don't have relevant content is a waste of google crawl budget.
One of the things I do always when I start an audit is check a crawl of the site with the access in analytics and the logs (access of the bots) to see the useful and useless pages for SEO.
With this data you can take better decisions.
Hope it helps
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
-
How do you deal with Scam-Type SEO businesses?
One of our potential clients is a limousine rental service. His current "Marketer" is going about his business in a seemingly sketchy way. I'm pretty new to having to compare myself to other SEO/Marketing competition. So, this guy has 100's of websites that are nearly identical. Quite a few have duplicate content, but all of them generally look the same. He leases these websites as lead generators: Think of it like this: he probably has 15-20 websites all geared for different parts of the DFW area. Denton Limo Service, Plano Limo Service, Dallas Limo Service, Etc. He also has a bunch of websites for other industries. Every "business" has its own phone number via a Google Number that he forwards to the actual business line. Every "business" has a Google My Business Listing setup as well with no address listed. When someone fills out the contact form on one of these sites, it is forwarded to the business who is leasing it. He also creates his own backlinks on his websites to all of his other websites. I imagine that eventually he will be caught, right? I mean, this has to be Black Hat SEO. Have any of you encountered an SEO/Marketer like this? If so, what do you do about it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | roger2050 -
.com geotagging redirect to subdomains - will it affect SEO?
Hi guys, We have a .com domain and we've got geoIP on it, so UK goes to .co.uk and USA goes to .com/us We're just migrating over to another platform so we're thinking of keeping a "dummy" server just to do this geoIP pointing for us. Essentially .com will just point over to the right place and hold a specific .com/abc (which is generic for everyone worldwide) Current Scenario:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Infruition
.com (Magento + geoIP)
.com/us (US Magento)
.co.uk (UK - geoIP redirect to Shopify)
.com/abc (sits on Magento server) Wanted Scenario:
.com - used for GEOIP and a specific .com/abc (for all users)
.co.uk (UK) - Shopify eCom
.com/us -> migration to us.xx.com (USA) - Shopify eCom I just wanted to know if this will affect our rankings on google? Also, any advice as to the best practises here would be great. Thanks! Nitesh0 -
Backlinks in Footer - The good, the bad, the ugly.
I tried adding onto a question already listed, however that question stayed where it was and didn't go anywhere close to somewhere others would see it, since it was from 2012. I have a competitor who is completely new, just popped onto the SERPs in December 2015. Now I've wondered how they jumped up so fast without really much in the way of user content. Upon researching them, I saw they have 200 backlinks but 160 of them are from their parent company, and of all places coming from the footer of their parent company. So they get all of the pages of that domain, as backlinks. Everything I've read has told me not to do this, it's going to harm the site bad if anything will discount the links. I'm in no way interested in doing what they did, even if it resulted in page 1 ( which it has done for them ), since I believe that it's only a matter of time, and once that time comes, it won't be a 3 month recovery, it might be worse. What do you all think? My question or discussion is why hasn't this site been penalized yet, will they be penalized and if not, why wouldn't they be? **What is the good, bad and ugly of backlinks in the footer: ** Good Bad Ugly
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Does type of hosting affect SEO rankings?
Hello, I was wondering if hosting on shared, versus VPS, versus dedicated ... matter at all in terms of the rankings of Web sites ... given that all other factors would be exactly equal. I know this is a big question with many variables, but mainly I am wondering if, for example, it is more the risk of resource usage which may take a site down if too much traffic and therefore make it un-crawlable if it happens at the moment that a bot is trying to index the site (factoring out the UX of a downed site). Any and all comments are greatly appreciated! Best regards,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | uworlds
Mark0 -
Best Link Building Strategies in Modern SEO
Hello, In light of all the updates and also in guest blogging being only for nofollow links now, what's some of the best strategies for link building for ecommerce sites? We're in an industry where the content doesn't get linked to very much. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Duplicate content for product pages
Say you have two separate pages, each featuring a different product. They have so many common features, that their content is virtually duplicated when you get to the bullets to break it all down. To avoid a penalty, is it advised to paraphrase? It seems to me it would benefit the user to see it all laid out the same, apples to apples. Thanks. I've considered combining the products on one page, but will be examining the data to see if there's a lost benefit to not having separate pages. Ditto for just not indexing the one that I suspect may not have much traction (requesting data to see).
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SSFCU0 -
Will blank category pages automatically get updated
Hello, We've got old category pages that are blank like domain/shoes.html (blank white page not in menu anymore) domain/newshoesurl.html (working URL with link in menu) Will the blank pages be automatically deindexed and updated by Google?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Any e-commerce users recommend an SEO company for link building?
I manage an e-commerce site. I wanted to know if anyone has worked with an SEO company for link-building that they would recommend. I DO NOT want articled directories, bookmarks, etc.. I want real link-building from credible/related sites. If you would give me an idea of the results or the general process they use I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | inhouseseo0