Thin content (under 200 words)

Severity: Warning
Impact: Medium
Effort to fix: High
Issue code: thin_content

Why it matters

Pages with very little text rarely satisfy search intent and may be treated as low value.

How to fix it

Expand the page with useful, original content or consolidate it into a stronger related page.

Thin is about usefulness, not only length

A word count flags pages worth reviewing. A short page that fully answers one question can be fine; a long page that repeats a template with one word changed is thin.

Options, from best to simplest

Expand pages that deserve to rank: add specifics a visitor needs, such as sizes, prices, steps, examples, comparisons and answers to common questions.
Merge several weak pages on the same topic into one strong page, and 301 redirect the others to it.
Noindex pages that must exist for users but have no search value, such as tag archives with one post.
Remove pages with no traffic, no links and no purpose.

Check for near-duplicate pages at the same time; thin template pages are often near duplicates of each other.

How it affects your score

Finding this issue on any page costs the Content score 3 points, plus up to 12 more depending on the share of crawled pages affected. Weakens rankings, crawling or measurement. Fix after critical issues.

Find the affected URLs

Open Crawl > Issues and pick Thin content (under 200 words). Each affected URL is listed with its evidence, and Copy URLs or Export URLs hands the list to a developer. The issue also appears in the Action Plan, ranked by impact (medium) and effort (high), and in the issues CSV under the code thin_content. After fixing, run a new audit and use Compare to confirm the URLs moved to fixed.