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'Build 70-page websites in order to stay on top in Google'

by michaelv03
16 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Google wants quality, rich and relevant content sites to rank highly rather than 'thin' ones.
As what used to be 'normal' websites with maybe 5-10 pages/ tabs are starting to drop off one by one in the Google rankings ( a lot of my sites have), I got the following advice from 2 respected SEO experts (no names shall be dropped); they want me to build majorly 'enlarged' websites, with one of the SEO guys telling me I should add 60-70 PAGES to the site to ensure future rankings will be high.

60-70 pages? Hello?

If everyone does this, Google will achieve the exact opposite of what it is trying to do. People will simply add tons of content that may be relevant in terms of keyword usage etc, but is really just bloated nonsense to make the site appear less thin. If you can say what you need to say over 5 pages, then just adding content for the sake of having a heavier site is extremely non-sensical. If you have a website selling, let's say' one certain type of pen, what can you add? Videos of 'pens around the world'? A short history of pens? How to hold a pen? How not to hold a pen?

If having to add that much content to have a chance of being ranked highly is the way forward, then for many search terms the first page of Google will be littered with garbage sites.

A lot of marketers sell one product on one website/ landing page, so the content of the site will naturally be thinner than let's say 'Amazon'.
So what are the chances of getting high rankings for landing pages in the future...unless you attach dozens of BS pages to it.

Oh, yes, I forgot. Of course, social media marketing is important, but you will still need a content heavy website anyway.

Has anyone been given this sort of advice before?

How do you all go about fattening your sites up?

Does anyone have more reasonable advice?
#70page #build #google #order #panda #penguin #ranking #seo #stay #top #websites
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    There's no magic page count.

    You could have millions of useless pages with no SEO or decent content. Or you could have 20 pages that are laser focused on relevant niche keywords getting double/triple SERP listings, that out rank your 60 pages.
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    • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      There's no magic page count.

      You could have millions of useless pages with no SEO or decent content. Or you could have 20 pages that are laser focused on relevant niche keywords getting double/triple SERP listings, that out rank your 60 pages.
      Agree with this times 1 million.

      I have sites with 1000, 100, and 1 page indexed in Google that are currently ranking.

      The biggest benefit of building out a big site is simply that it keeps the user around longer (Assuming it is good). This increases user experience metrics, stuff like time on site, decreases bounce etc. And can also lead to other good user experience metrics such as brand typins in chrome and brand searches in Google.

      OP - Basically, the people who are telling you to do that are just exploiting your ignorance. You can best spend your time trying to learn about how Google works, SEO ranking factors and get a general idea what is happening.

      A couple of good places to start would bere: Read This First: Understanding The Correct SEO Mindset!

      and

      Here: Everything Your Need To Know About Google SEO Ranking Factors For 2013!

      Stop listening to one guru. Take what everyone is saying. See what validates and then decide for yourself. I got good at SEO by testing and making up my own opinions.

      Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author anwar001
    The advice given by the SEO experts is not exactly wrong. I have seen this in other case studies too that having lots of pages on your site can have positive effect on the rankings.

    However, you are wrong to say you can put nonsensical content or garbage content in order to increase the pages. You should try and add as many informative pages as you can on the site. It makes sense to make authority sites with lots of pages rather than thin sites. I don't know why you have problem with that kind of strategy.

    Another great benefit to having lots of pages on your site is that you can get many more visitors through long tail keyword phrases which you didn't target at all. You might even get traffic from obscure keyword combinations which you never thought of.

    Your site visitors will also benefit when they visit your website by being able to read all the available content on the topic of their interest. Of course, all these benefits can occur only if you have relevant, interesting and informative content. You might be investing a lot of money on link building and SEO, why not invest a small percent of that money on content development by letting others write informative content if you don't want to do it yourself?

    I hope that makes sense for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author LloydMS
    And I think there's a difference between a thin site (not a lot of pages) and thin content, and the latter is the issue. If you have a one-page site with great content you're still going to rank. Certainly having more pages on your site, all being "good" content" starts to transform your site into an "authority".
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  • Profile picture of the author imlogic
    it's pretty easy.... look at the top 5 results for your targeted kw's. do what they do. that's all the "expert seo" advice you need.

    if the top 5 results have 100 pages on average then you need a 100 pages. on average... if they have x links from y places then you need x links from y places.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rocketboy
    Well, if you target 100 keywords, you are lucky if you get 20 keywords in the top ten. So, if you write 100 pages of content and rank 20 of them, it's much better than write 20 pages of content and rank 4 of them. You never know which articles that's going to rank well, so a 100 pages website gives you a better chance to get a good result.
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  • Profile picture of the author kaytav
    70 Page website??? Is this like the new rule, or does Google say something like this?
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  • Profile picture of the author Shevd
    I have achieved great results ranking with websites that contain only 7 pages of high quality content that has been setup in the correct way.

    So I would say don't worry about having lots of pages on your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author golfer57
    Put up quality content and whatever amount of pages that is, it is. As you mentioned, we would then be going in the opposite direction and that does not make any sense. I have been building and ranking sites from 5 to 25+ with no problem. All original content (nothing spun) and ranking well. I think what you were told was somebody wanting to sell something, as most of these quote unquote "gurus" tell you. They want in your pocket and not much of anything else. Some are good but hard to find them.
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  • Profile picture of the author FrankRumbauskas
    We've done all kinds of experimenting to stay on top of what works and what doesn't in SEO, and we've ranked 2-3 page mini sites that are only a few months old, faster than 10-year old sites with hundreds of pages, for highly competitive keywords.

    I don't know if there's a flaw in G's algo, or if these older sites have simply been over-SEO'ed in the past, or something else, but I don't think there's any truth to "have a 70 page site to get ranked."
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    • Profile picture of the author michaelv03
      Hi, thank you all for your great input.

      As an addition to what I said about Google's Algorhithm, I would like to add that Googles AR is most definitely severely flawed- big time. All you have to look at the 'real world' results of what they have done versus their theory of how things are going to be.

      Again, Google wants 'quality and relevant content'.

      If you are in the language teaching or dialect coaching business for example, it makes for an interesting case study to just google 'American accent' for example and you will get very, very few 'quality results'.

      A quality and relevant result is most certainly NOT a site that just receives a lot of visitors. I would happen to strongly disagree with Google's idea that high traffic= relevance/ quality

      If I want to learn or look up something about 'American accent' (or strictly speaking the 'Standard American accent' but lots of non natives refer to it as American accent) and google these keywords, then you should- according to Google's desired new ranking hierarchy- be able to reasonably expect sites such as 'Wikipedia' -which you do see when you google these key phrase (I know, I know, some people do not take WP seriously or as an authority LOL) and maybe you should also see a few more results from a real authoritative website such as, let's say' Merriam-Webster' or similar site of long standing and articles/ sites that would give the viewer/ searcher results like 'A discourse and history of the American accent' or something similar...but of course you do NOT get such results.

      Instead you get (no offense to the owners of the content!) some guy who is having a go at doing an American accent. Yes, he did have 8 Million views for his video, but this just proves my point. I am sorry but his video, in terms of the keywords used, is neither relevant, nor quality. High traffic does NOT necessarily indicate quality or relevance.


      If Google is trying to outsmart the thousands of SEO marketers out there who have been getting high traffic for websites that Goole may not think are relevant, then the new ARs do not seem to work so well. I can make a video today and get 10 Million views on it some time down the line (of course using a paid 'YT views' service etc), then I may also get that video ranking highly as Google seems to think that high numbers make something relevant. It does not and never has. Relevance should be based on quality rather than quantity.

      ..and some post about an actress' American accent'

      Is Emily Blunt a Better American Than Brit? -- Vulture

      These are just random examples. I am sure that if you type in any keyword/ key phrase at all you will find plenty of highly irrelevant and poor quality sites ranking highly. And those sites did not always necessarily get ranked highly due to SEO techniques being used but I believe that a lot of them are ranked highly because God Google deems them relevant according to their automated ARs and thinks that we are all so desperate to see those results LOL.

      By the way, I am not ranting here. I am just putting my thoughts out there to
      see what fellow marketers may think and I am sure that quite a few would probably agree that Google's AR oh-so-smart-and-highly-advanced changes are not all they are cracked to be or achieve the desired results at all.

      Anyone agree?
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    In 2 of my niches, both of my top 2 competitors have between 500-700 pages of content. Many of the sites beneath them, have between 7-20 pages of content.

    So right now I'm trying to do as much content as possible. It seems to me like lots of content makes a difference. But what really matters the most is keyword placement/lsi structure... I think thats what makes a page "thick" or "thin".
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    • Profile picture of the author TrentLee
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

      It seems to me like lots of content makes a difference. But what really matters the most is keyword placement/lsi structure... I think thats what makes a page "thick" or "thin".
      I'm not big on SEO so maybe this keyword placement/lsi structure type of stuff is still working now, but as each day passes I'd say this type of mechanical approach to SEO is going to work less and less. Good content is good content, and Google doesn't want people who have great content to share to have to worry about this kind of crap.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anoosh Kashefi
    Google lives on content, but I am not sure they are going to stop ranking relevant, high quality content just because it is on a domain with only a few pages... Of course, authority is the way to go but many of us are not into that..

    Unfortunately, Google doesn't care about us! Content is king, so adding a little more wont hurt!
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    You searched Google for American accent & the video title is My American Accent, then you say that's not relevant? Why isn't the video title relevant to your search query?

    Your search phrase is very broad, your not searching for training, your not searching for a business.
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  • Profile picture of the author dotgirish
    I have few sites which have less than 15 pages outranking so called authority sites in my Niche. As mentioned earlier , having more pages might help in decreasing bounce rate which is considered to be a big factor to rank. But if you are so passionate about the topic and can write so much , yes you should not stop doing it.
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