Thin content pages can significantly hurt your SEO efforts. In this guide, you’ll learn what thin content is, how to identify it, and what you can do to fix or prevent it on your site.

Thin content usually refers to pages with low word counts, little substance, duplicate content issues, or content automatically generated by tools. Search engines want to reward sites with original, useful content that offers value to users. It often fails to achieve that goal, so Google may penalize or ignore such pages in search results.

If you have thin content on your site, it can negatively impact rankings and traffic. By identifying these content issues through audits and fixing them with better content strategies, you can improve SEO.

Read on for a complete guide on thin content in SEO and what you can do about it.

What Is Considered “Thin Content” in SEO?

Thin content refers to pages that offer little value to users from an informational and usefulness standpoint. Here are some examples of what may be considered thin:

• Low word count pages – Pages with only a couple of sentences or short paragraphs. Generally, pages under 300 words could be flagged as thin content.
• Duplicate content – Identical or slightly tweaked content that appears across multiple pages on your site or is scraped from other sites.
• Affiliate content – Pages just made for affiliate links rather than offering any useful info.
• Doorway pages – Pages overly optimized for specific keywords with barely any content.
• Automatically generated pages – Pages created by tools with spun or autogenerated text content.

Essentially, thin content is anything that seems to prioritize keywords over offering truly valuable info to serve users. Search engines can recognize patterns like this, so thin content may be demoted or ignored in rankings.

Why Thin Content Can Hurt Your SEO

Here are three key reasons why thin content can cause SEO problems:

1. It may trigger manual or algorithmic penalties from Google. Google wants to reward quality content that offers value and helps searchers. Thin or duplicate content violates Google’s quality guidelines. If detected, it may lead to manual spam actions or get demoted by algorithms.

2. Thin pages dilute the overall quality and usefulness of your site. A site with lots of great content mixed with low-quality thin pages appears inconsistent to search engines. This can hurt your site’s overall reputation and authority.

3. Thin affiliate pages distract from core content. Pages only made for affiliate revenue with no real content can make your site seem spammy. Keep affiliate links only on relevant pages that already offer great info.

In short, thin content gives users and Google the impression that you care more about driving traffic than providing value. By identifying and removing thin content, you signal your commitment to quality content.

How to Identify Thin Content Pages

Here are some tips on analyzing your content to catch thin or duplicate pages:

Check Word Counts

Sort your site’s pages by word count to quickly spot very short pages. As a rule of thumb, pages under 300 words should get further evaluated as potential thin content candidates.

Review New Pages

Check any newly published pages over the past 3-6 months. Newer pages may not have been properly optimized or checked for quality yet.

Use Google Search Console

Check Search Console for crawl errors related to duplicate title tags or content. Duplicate title tags especially indicate copied content issues.

Compare Related Pages

Compare pages targeting similar keywords or topics side-by-side. Very similar content may indicate duplication issues.

Check Low Traffic Pages

Sort pages by traffic averages. Obscure pages getting little to no traffic more likely suffer from thin content issues.

Use Tool Audits

SEO tools like Lumar, OnPage.org and Siteliner can automatically flag thin or duplicate page content issues through on-site audits.

By regularly analyzing your content using these tips, you can catch thin content issues early before they create problems.

Examples of Thin Content Hurting Sites

To illustrate damage thin content can inflict, here are two real examples:

Over-Optimized Affiliate Review Site

A site published hundreds of articles reviewing products in a niche just to incorporate affiliate links. But 90% of their articles contained less than 500 words of duplicated manufacturer descriptions. They crammed keywords throughout purely to rank. As a result, Google demoted the entire domain.

Law Firm Landing Pages

A law firm created location-specific landing pages targeting “best law firm in [city]” keywords. Each page had around 100 words praising themselves as the best without any tangible evidence or client info. These empty claims landed the pages in Google’s supplemental index with no visibility.

Both examples above contained lots of affiliate or self-promotional thin content rather than truly useful advice. Duplication and lack of substance killed their page authority.

Let’s now explore ways to fix and prevent such issues by improving overall content quality.

How to Fix Thin Content

Here are seven tips to help fix or avoid thin content pitfalls:

1. Perform Content Audits

Regularly audit content using the tips in this guide to catch thin or duplicate pages. By finding issues quickly, you can act before getting penalized.

2. Expand Pages Below 300 Words

Adding more paragraphs with unique useful info can help pages meet that 300+ word threshold.

3. Spice Up Affiliate Content

If including affiliate links, focus first on sharing great intel in your niche. Links should supplement advice rather than replace content.

4. Replace Duplicate Content

For duplicated content, either cite sources clearly or replace with 100% original copy and info specific to your offerings.

5. Eliminate Overly Keyword-Focused Pages

Remove or rewrite any pages created primarily just to target or rank for specific keywords. Offer helpful advice instead.

6. Create New, Useful Content

Publishing regular new blog and landing page content builds trust through quality over quantity.

7. Automate Rewrites for Mass Thin Content

If you inherit a site with lots of thin, duplicated content, use rewrite automation tools like Spin Rewriter to efficiently generate fresh copy. Just be sure to manually review it after.

Improving thin content requires persistence, but it generates long-term rewards through better SEO and user trust. Google notices when you make fix quality issues.

Key Takeaways on Avoiding Thin Content

Here are some key tips to remember about thin content in SEO:

✓ Understand what constitutes thin content – Short pages, duplicate content, doorway pages, affiliate fluff, and automated text often get flagged as thin.

✓ Regularly audit content using word count checks, Google Search Console, and SEO tools to catch issues early.

✓ Expand pages below 300 words. Light content usually needs more paragraph elaboration to seem substantive.

✓ Replace duplicate or scraped content by citing sources or rewriting everything 100% uniquely.

✓ Focus on quality, not quantity – Publish new content consistently, emphasizing useful advice over keywords.

Avoiding penalties and achieving growth requires keeping all content packed with value. Just a few thin pages can raise red flags signaling low-quality standards. By debugging content issues through ongoing audits and improvement, you reinforce positive quality perceptions with Google and visitors to enhance SEO results.