Thin Content for SEO: How to Identify and Fix It

Thin content usually means pages that provide little unique value for searchers. This guide shows how to detect it across a full site, prioritize what to fix first, and choose the right action: expand, merge, canonicalize, or redirect.

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What Thin Content Is

Thin content is not only “low word count.” A page can be short and still be useful. The real issue is low unique value compared with the intent it targets.

Focus on value and usefulness first. Word count is a signal, not the final rule.

Why It Hurts Rankings

How to Identify Thin Pages

1. Crawl the whole site Include status, word count, title/H1/meta, canonical, depth, and inlinks.
2. Segment by template Group similar URLs (products/categories/blog) to find repeated thin patterns.
3. Prioritize by impact Start with thin pages that have strong inlinks, shallow depth, and business value.
4. Detect cannibalization Flag pages targeting the same query intent and assign one primary URL.

How to Fix by Page Type

For e-commerce, prioritize product and category templates that can be improved at scale.

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