Google: Higher Page Count Means Nothing For Search Rankings

Nov 6, 2018 - 7:27 am 6 by

Google Many

Google's John Mueller said on Reddit that higher page count "means nothing" for ranking higher in Google. He said, in fact, he has seen case studies from the SEO community where reducing the number of pages results in overall better rankings in Google search. But the number of pages on your site is not a specific ranking factor in Google.

John wrote:

A higher page count means nothing (otherwise everyone would have an infinite calendar on their site, or heck, two.) There's (still) no magical ranking factor that results in a site ranking better if it has more pages indexed. If anything, anecdotally from conference presentations & talking with folks, large sites that reduce the number of indexed pages end up ranking better (usually from cutting out cruft, merging similar content, etc). Of course, if you have more things to say about the niche that you're active in, by all means create more great content for it, but if you're thinking about just splitting your existing content out across more URLs, that's unlikely to be a good strategy for search.

An old poll from 2013 is where most SEOs believed that Google ranks large sites better than smaller sites. Although, how you define large vs small sites is a bit up in the air. Recently, John Mueller said that the frequency of content publishing also doesn't influence ranking.

Although, having more unique and quality content gives you more opportunities to rank well in search. But sometimes you can overdo it with the long tail targeting - I mean, Panda has come and stuck around.

Forum discussion at Reddit.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: We Won't Change The 301 Redirect Signals For Ranking & SEO

Apr 24, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Image Search Tests Tablet Like Design Interface

Apr 24, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Our Link Best Practices Doc Are Still Good Guidelines

Apr 24, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Established In Extensions

Apr 24, 2024 - 7:21 am
Bing Search

Bing Tests Lock Icon In New Search Snippet Location

Apr 24, 2024 - 7:11 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: April 23, 2024

Apr 23, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Previous Story: Google Releases Lazy Loading SEO Help Guide