Number of indexed pages

[laurenceh]

How does (if at all) the amount of pages indexed by google for a site affect it's ranking?

Just a site that sits top of google for a keyword has only 220 odd backlinks but 13000 indexed pages and number two site has 1000 backlinks but only 4000 indexed pages.

I wondered if indexed pages was the SEO difference or does it not count for anything?

[Rush]

In my experience the amount of indexed pages doesn't really make a difference SEO wise. For example a one page minisite dedicated to the keyword you are trying to rank for will work really well.

[Muz Azar]

Hi Lauren

I suppose that the number of indexed sites is actually just a reflection of how continually the website is updating its content, which in turn will make it appear more relevant amongst google.

Updating with regular content is important for outranking stale competitors and can be a great tactic for ranking well.

Site 1 has far fewer backlinks but those backlinks could be of much higher quality.

Hope that helps

[timpears]

One thing that might help the site with lots more pages is that link juice flows from page to page. So if the home page and or any others have internal links pointing to each other, that will help to drive the site up the sERPs. How much this helps, I can't tell you. What I will say though, is that if a site doesn't put internal links through out its site, that would be unusual.

But as others have said, the number of pages will not really make the difference by its self.

[jasonmorgan]

I don't think number of pages makes a difference... but this is more of a guess. Not much help here, sorry. It might make a difference when it comes to competing with the big authority sites... I dunno.

The reason I like to have a large number of pages is primarily to capture additional long-tail keywords... increasing the odds that sombody will reach my site. If I throw enough crap out into the internet universe somebody is going to stumble across it eventually.