Are online tools considered thin content?
-
My website has a number of simple converters.
For example, this one converts spaces to commas
https://convert.town/replace-spaces-with-commasNow, obviously there are loads of different variations I could create of this:
Replace spaces with semicolons
Replace semicolons with tabs
Replace fullstops with commasSimilarly with files:
JSON to XML
XML to PDF
JPG to PNG
JPG to TIF
JPG to PDF
(and thousands more)If somoene types one of those into Google, they will be happy because they can immediately use the tool they were hunting for.
It is obvious what these pages do so I do not want to clutter the page up with unnecessary content.
However, would these be considered doorway pages or thin content or would it be acceptable (from an SEO perspective) to generate 1000s of pages based on all the permutations?
-
Ah - sorry for my misunderstanding. So you are leaning towards combining the pages.
So unit-conversion.info has a combined page: http://www.unit-conversion.info/metric.html
When I search for "convert from micro to deci", they appear as number 8. If I click on their page, it defaults to base and mega, so I then have to change the dropdowns.
The number 1 result for that search is this page https://www.unitconverters.net/prefixes/micro-to-deci.htm - it has Micro and Deci preselected.
unit-conversion.info only has 460 but Unitconverters.net has 50,000 pages indexed by Google. Despite the "thin content", they still appear number 1 (admittedly, this may be due to other factors).
As far as user experience goes, I would prefer to land on unitconverters.net because I have less things to click.
I guess the art is in finding the sweet spot in being able to give a search result with context without spinning out too much thin content.
Thanks again for your detailed response!
-
Hi again,
sorry if I have not expressed myself very well.
In my opinion, you would have only 1 page for each of those tools (with all the conversion options), and along the text of that page (+ title & meta description), there would be optimized the generic keywords like "replace character tool", "replace characters online"... and the conversion specific ones like "replace space with columns", without abusing to avoid keyword stuffing / spam.
The same for the Convert Image Tool, just one page, like this people did: unit-conversion.info with the conversion text tool and all the others.
More pages than that would surely create thin content and would divide the authority between all that pages instead of having all that authory in 1 quality page that optimizes along text and metas the most searched of the conversion options of each tool.
In any case, if you create additional pages for the most commonly searched-for variants (just a few), that could be acceptable as you said.
Greetings!
-
Yes I was thinking along the same lines - if I create a page for commonly searched-for variants, then that will be an acceptable "thin page".
OK, so if I understand correctly, you would suggest having one generic "replace text" page. The phrase variants - "replace character tool", "replace characters online", "replace text tool", should appear throughout that same page (not on separate pages).
The following SEPARATE pages would have the find / replace textboxes of the generic converter prefilled (because they are commonly searched for):
- Replace spaces with columns
- Replace spaces with semicolons
- Replace semicolons with spaces
- Replace and with &
...and all other common but relevant search phrases
But you would NOT create a separate page for:
- Replace question mark with space
- Replace the letter t with the letter b
Does that sound right to you?
Then for the Convert Image tool, wouldn't it be best (in a similar fashion) to have one generic tool but then the common searches prefilled on separate pages:
- Convert image to image
- Convert Image to GIF
- Convert PNG to JPG
- Convert PNG to GIF
(and perhaps 100 others)
Each of these tools are different in functionality and will be more helpful to the user if they are prefilled with what they are looking for?
-
So I guess that is actually my argument - that each tool deserves its own page (if it is something commonly searched for). The user experience is not as good if they search for "convert spaces to semicolons", then land on a page where they have to also enter a space and a semicolon before they get what they want. If these are prefilled, surely the user would prefer that. Will Google realise that users prefer that though? That is the big question.
OK - if I don't fill the page with spam, then it won't be considered a gateway page.
Thank you for your response.
-
Hi
It's a difficult question.
By one side, it would be interesting for the searcher to have directly access to the tool with the exact function they are looking for.
By the other, many functions are very similar and they will surely have very similar content that doesn't provide new interesting information (thin content).
I think you should go for the point between this sides. I mean, you can create many different tools, but tools that group all similar functions.
For example:
Replace Character Tool (you can replace with this any character or text by any other). Here you have an example of this tool: http://www.unit-conversion.info/texttools/replace-text/. In this tool you can moderately optimize all the keywords related to the different functions, by mentioning them on the text, h1-h2-h3, or in the Title / Meta Description. Don't try to optimize all different variants because there are too much. Go for the most searched ones (use Google Keyword Planner or a similar tool to identify them). You should also optimize the variants of "replace character tool" like "replace characters online" or "replace text tool", (important to also use "free" if the tools are free)
The same for image conversion with Convert Image Tool ("online picture conversion" + "free convert img tool"... + most popular img format conversion like "png to jpg conversion tool"), all in the same page.
Hope that helps!
-
Hi there,
My personal recommendation here, if possible, would be to compile all of the tools into one easy to use page. So all of the file converting permutations would be under one page and all of the 'replace' tools will be under another page.
Not only would this be better user experience but also you wouldn't clog up your site with thin pages from the multiple permutations of the pages.
You could of course argue that each tool deserves its own page because technically they each do different things.
What would make any one of these pages into a gateway page is if you bulked them out with a large amount of content that was specifically designed for search engines.
I hope this helps to answer your question
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
-
Do content copycats (plagiarism) hurt original website rankings?
Hi all, Found some websites stolen our content and using the same sentences in their website pages. Does this content hurt our website rankings? Their DA is low, still we are worried about the damage about this plagiarism. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Would this be duplicate content or bad SEO?
Hi Guys, We have a blog for our e-commerce store. We have a full-time in-house writer producing content. As part of our process, we do content briefs, and as part of the brief we analyze competing pieces of content existing on the web. Most of the time, the sources are large publications (i.e HGTV, elledecor, apartmenttherapy, Housebeautiful, NY Times, etc.). The analysis is basically a summary/breakdown of the article, and is sometimes 2-3 paragraphs long for longer pieces of content. The competing content analysis is used to create an outline of our article, and incorporates most important details/facts from competing pieces, but not all. Most of our articles run 1500-3000 words. Here are the questions: Would it be considered duplicate content, or bad SEO practice, if we list sources/links we used at the bottom of our blog post, with the summary from our content brief? Could this be beneficial as far as SEO? If we do this, should be nofollow the links, or use regular dofollow links? For example: For your convenience, here are some articles we found helpful, along with brief summaries: <summary>I want to use as much of the content that we have spent time on. TIA</summary>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kekepeche1 -
Will including a global-site link in all 100 local-sites footer be considered spammy?
If I am a car manufacturer brand site(global), and I request all my location-specific domains include a link to the global site in their footers, would this trigger a red flag for Google? There are roughly 100 location-specific sites, but I would like to come up with a long term solution, so this number could be larger in the future. Is it best practice to only follow the footer link on each location-specific site Homepage, and nofollow the rest of the footer links on each site? Is it best to only include one followed link to the manufacturer brand site (global) on each location-specific domain? Is it best to not put this global link in the footer, but rather towards the top of the page only on the homepage?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jonathan.Smith0 -
Duplicate Content for e-commerce help
Hi. I know I have duplicate content issues and Moz has shown me the issues on ecommerce websites. However a large number of these issues are for variations of the same product. For example a blue, armani t-shirt can be found on armani page, t-shirt page, armani t-shirt page and it also shows links for the duplicates due to sizing variations. Is it possible or even worthwhile working on these issues? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | YNWA0 -
Hiding content or links in responsive design
Hi, I found a lot of information about responsive design and SEO, mostly theories no real experiment and I'd like to find a clear answer if someone tested that. Google says:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NurunMTL
Sites that use responsive web design, i.e. sites that serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the device
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details For usability reasons sometimes you need to hide content or links completely (not accessible at all by the visitor) on your page for small resolutions (mobile) using CSS ("visibility:hidden" or "display:none") Is this counted as hidden content and could penalize your site or not? What do you guys do when you create responsive design websites? Thanks! GaB0 -
Copied Content/ Copied Website/
Hello guys, I was checking my product descriptions and I found out that there is a website that is using my descriptions word by word, also they use company name, product images, they have a link that sends you to my site, contact form.. I tried to purchase something and the order came through our email, but i made an inquire and it didn't come through. Also they have a sub-folder with my company name. Also they have url's with my company name, and this isn't right is it? I am confused and honestly I don't know what to do, we don't take part to any affiliation program or anything like that and we don't ship out of Europe. This is a Chinese website. Just for curiosity, I noticed that one of our competitors is there as well, and it does seem weird. Here is the links: www.everychina . com/company/repsole_limited-hz1405d06.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PremioOscar0 -
Google 'most successful online businesses'
how come this guy has all but 1 of the top ten results? (UK results - I'm guessing same in USA?) - with thin content on a spammed keyword on multi-sub domains? How can we 'white hat' guys compete if stuff like this is winning?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TheInternetWorks0 -
Tricky Decision to make regarding duplicate content (that seems to be working!)
I have a really tricky decision to make concerning one of our clients. Their site to date was developed by someone else. They have a successful eCommerce website, and the strength of their Search Engine performance lies in their product category pages. In their case, a product category is an audience niche: their gender and age. In this hypothetical example my client sells lawnmowers: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-25 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-3 For all searches pertaining to lawnmowers, the gender of the buyer and their age (for which there are a lot for the 'real' store), these results come up number one for every combination they have a page for. The issue is the specific product pages, which take the form of the following: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower This same product, with the same content (save a reference to the gender and age on the page) can also be found at a few other gender / age combinations the product is targeted at. For instance: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33/fancy-blue-lawnmower http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-32/fancy-blue-lawnmower So, duplicate content. As they are currently doing so well I am agonising over this - I dislike viewing the same content on multiple URLs, and though it wasn't a malicious effort on the previous developers part, think it a little dangerous in terms of SEO. On the other hand, if I change it I'll reduce the website size, and severely reduce the number of pages that are contextually relevant to the gender/age category pages. In short, I don't want to sabotage the performance of the category pages, by cutting off all their on-site relevant content. My options as I see them are: Stick with the duplicate content model, but add some unique content to each gender/age page. This will differentiate the product category page content a little. Move products to single distinct URLs. Whilst this could boost individual product SEO performance, this isn't an objective, and it carries the risks I perceive above. What are your thoughts? Many thanks, Tom
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SoundinTheory0