How many pages is too many to add to a site at one time?
-
I have quite a bit of excellent content articles at my disposal and we would like to increase the number of pages on our site. I could, theoretically add 100's of pages at a time. Does anyone have a good sense of how much content added to a sight in mass looks bad to Google?
My plan is to add approximately 50 pages a week to our site, which already has 4000 pages of content. This is relevant content, since we are a custom writing service and all topics are covered. Our content is what gives us great organic hits and orders. However, I would like to add more than 50 a week...how many is too many?
Thanks and I appreciate thoughts and feedback!
Karen
-
Here's an updated video (April 2011) from Matt Cutts that addresses adding a lot of pages all at once: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XpJacspWz4Y#t=130s
-
Yes, I am jealous too. I normally spend several days on a single page of content - so seeing someone with hundreds of pages makes me green with envy.
-
Obviously much depends on the architecture of the site.
Another problem with posting lots of content is creating relevant cross-linking in the content. Unless of course you're relying on tags/related article type widgets to handle this for you and not worry about inline links.
I'm just jealous - my problem is normally struggling to get any content at all!
-
How will visitors to your site react to such an avalanche of content.
Visitors will not see the avalanche.... Instead they will see a fantastic library of content that is wonderfully organized.
My worry would be that if you publish too much the individual articles can get lost and don't get the eye-balls they deserve.
As for "giving it the eyeballs it deserves"... you can promote it slowly... but it will immediately start pulling traffic from the organic SERPs.
Another thoughtI have is if you're publishing 1000's of articles - are you revising/pruning old articles too?
Sure, we do that all of the time... and publishing new ones tomorrow.
-
How will visitors to your site react to such an avalanche of content. My worry would be that if you publish too much the individual articles can get lost and don't get the eye-balls they deserve.
If you list new content on the home and/or section pages - how much can they promote?
Another thought I have is if you're publishing 1000's of articles - are you revising/pruning old articles too?
-
It was funny, Ryan. I agree Matt Cutts videos would be the last thing you need swimming in your head...
-
From the point of view in the second paragraph, I agree as well. If it was all new content that could drive new customers or drive current customers to buy additionally, I would put it all up as well.
Certainly when it comes to a small component of the algorithm versus money today...show me the money.
Thx
-
My head is swimming with Matt Cutts videos which is not healthy. If someone asks "is it better to have keywords in the path or page name" my instant thoughts are "Alex Black"..."Green polo shirt"...not bald.
If you don't get the joke, don't worry. You are probably better off for it!
-
I knew there was a Matt Cutts video on this...just couldn't find it!!!
-
If all the content is dissimilar and each page focuses on some different writing item: sports-football, baseball, basketball, etc. and medicine, etc. and you have no content showing that, I would put it all up as well.
yes, I agree completely... this is the best situation possible.
I challenge anyone to prove putting up 1000 pages of content overnight, with no further description of it, will increase site performance appreciably.
When I put up new content it starts making money the next day. It makes money from pulling visitors from search, makes money from visitors from other destination, and makes money from people who landed on my site from other pages. That is guaranteed money. Holding the content back because dripping it out over time might produce a freshness boost is a gamble.
-
I think the issue is what is the site about and knowing how the content helps. Not just putting quality content up in a vacuum. So, if the site is about custom writing, and there are 4000 pages of examples, I don't think adding an additional 1000 today will help in any appreciable way. If all the content is dissimilar and each page focuses on some different writing item: sports-football, baseball, basketball, etc. and medicine, etc. and you have no content showing that, I would put it all up as well.
I believe if the content is similar to what is on the site, adding it over time (not five years, but one) could have an interesting impact. Not sure if there is a measure currently.
So, issuing the same type challenge, I challenge anyone to prove putting up 1000 pages of content overnight, with no further description of it, will increase site performance appreciably.
Is an interesting question though.
-
Adding hundreds of pages at a time is not a concern. There is not any reason to throttle the release of the pages.
The bigger concern is the quality of the content. The highest quality content often takes multiple days of a full-time person performing research, locating images, etc.
A helpful video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JByPymBtXFY
-
Wow! In my opinion, not publishing valuable content immediately is like owning a machine that vacuums up money and refusing to use it.
If somebody gave me 1000 articles written by the Pope I would be breaking a leg to get them on my site. I would actually pay my webmaster overtime to get them on the site as fast as possible... I would be working with him to get it done fast.
I am salivating just thinking about all of that content! OMG!
I challenge anybody to present proof that holding back content is a better strategy that blasting it out right away!
-
eworld,
You state that you have "quite a bit of excellent content articles at my disposal," which does beg a question regarding duplicate content. Are these articles anywhere else on the web? If not, and you are asking from the point of view of is there a penalty for adding lots of content, I am not aware of any.
At the same time if it is content that can be added over time and will help with QDF (query deserves freshness), Cyrus Shepard has an excellent post on SEOmoz blog. To quote a portion of it,** Websites that add new pages at a higher rate may earn a higher freshness score** than sites that add content less frequently.
Cyrus further adds that one needs to be careful not to ignore content on older pages.
I do not think by this he means that putting up 1000 new pages in a week will rocket you to stardom on the Internet, but I do think if your content is fresh and not currently on the web, you could have a real opportunity with this portion of the algorithm.
Best
-
There is probably no magic number of how much content you can add or how fast. Quality is key - if you're adding high quality, unique content, I would not expect you to see any problems, no matter how much or how fast you added content.
Without having further details, your plan to add 50 pages/week to a 4,000 page site seems reasonable to me.
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
-
I want your SEO feedback for my site!
Hello Moz community, Please check out my website http://www.likechimp.com - I'd love to know your thoughts. I have never built links for my website but managed to do pretty well on the rankings organically. Lately, figures have dropped so need to get back up there on Google. Any tips from what you see already would be greatly appreciated! Example ecom product I sell: http://likechimp.com/facebook-shop/buy-100-facebook-event-attendees/ Thanks
Content Development | | xlucax0 -
Should I Be Concerned about Too Many Links in Interview?
I was contacted recently from a small online magazine (DA 17) who wanted to interview me about my area of expertise. Although it's not a high authority site, I gladly accepted, conducted the interview, and he posted it on his site today. Throughout the course of the final interview article, he linked to my website 5 times. Once in the intro, and 4 times in reference to different answers I gave. At this point, I'm wondering if it looks like a spammy guest post, even though it was legitimately conducted. Should I ask him to remove some of the links so it doesn't look spammy? I feel kinda bad because he's not trying to do anything fishy. If you want to see the referenced article, you can check it out here: http://mensmagdaily.com/counting-cards-colin-of-blackjackapprentice-com-shows-us-the-ropes/
Content Development | | cojo0 -
Renaming web pages vs new web site
I am struggling with renaming a lot of my web pages because I used short form acronyms vs long form keyword page names and now my pages aren't ranking where they should be and used to be. I am weighing a whole new web site or just a massive update with new page names. I also have an old domain that 301's to the new url but the old one outranks the new one. If you search google for cheap tubes the first domain you see is www.cheaptubesinc.com (the 301'd version) when the real url is www.cheaptubes.com. I know I am getting a duplicate content penalty and when moz crawls my site they see 2X the page that I really have. I tried fixing this with canonical tags but it only helped 5 pages according the moz crawls since doing them. Since last July 4th my business has been declining and I know there was an SEO algorithm update last July 4th. I think either method of renaming the web pages with better SEO for instance cheaptubes.com/single-wall-carbon-nanotubes.htm vs cheaptubes.com/swnts.htm as it is currently. In either case, it is still an HTML 2 website done on frontpage and the question I keep asking myself is if I should just scrap the whole site and start over with a more modern format. Should I try to get a new site together with good SEO and publish it quickly vs rename and 301 a bunch of pages? What about the old site? Do I need to track the old page names and 301 them to the new ones? Any help is appreciates Mike
Content Development | | cheaptubes0 -
Would you allow guest writers to have google adsense on your site
Hi, i am thinking of building a website where 30% of the writers would be guest bloggers and i was thinking about letting guest bloggers have adsense on the site. What i was thinking of doing was, allowing the guest blogger to have one google adsense advert on the page of the article but not sure what people think. The new magazine would be on one topic but i am worried incase the person kept on pressing the google adsense advert to get money in. The google adsense code would be there code, does anyone know if there is a way from hiding their code so they do not know which one is their google adsense advert, and do people think this is a good idea. This would only be offered to people who write good quality interest content. will be interested to hear your thoughts
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Are there quality blog sites allowing guest blogging ?
hi can someone guide me the right direction for guest blogging ? i m looking for quality blog sites that allow guest blogging especially for ecommerce related sites. Thank you Nick
Content Development | | orion680 -
Guest Blogging - Home Page PR0
I have found a blog in my niche that accepts guest posts. However, the site is quite odd in that the homepage has a PR of 0 and all the other pages have a 2. I just wanted to check if it is still worth posting on this site as it looks suspicious to me. Thanks.
Content Development | | AAttias0 -
FAQ page to target "long tail keywords".
I'm wondering if there is any benefit to creating a FAQ section on a website for the purpose of ranking for long tail keywords. If so, are there best practices in the way that the page is structured? Also, would doing this just help me rank the FAQ page for these terms or would it also help more critical pages on my website, such as homepage, contact, about, etc... which do not contain these keywords.
Content Development | | pharcydeabc0 -
Displaying archive content articles in a writers bio page
My site has writers, and each has their own profile page (accessible when you click their name inside an article). We set up the code in a way that the bios, in addition to the actual writer photo/bio, would dynamically generate links to each article he/she produces. Figured that someone reading something by Bob Smith, might want to read other stuff by him. Which was fine, initially. Fast forward, and some of these writers have 3,4, even 15 pages of archives, as the archive system paginates every 10 articles (so www.example.com/bob-smith/archive-page3, etc) My thinking is that this is a bad thing. The articles are likely already found elsewhere in the site (under the content landing page it was written for, for example) and I visualize spiders getting sucked into these archive black holes, never to return. I also assume that it is just more internal mass linking (yech) and probably doesnt help the overall TOS/bounce/exit, etc. Thoughts?
Content Development | | EricPacifico0