As Google continues the crackdown on low-quality content, you may notice a warning in your Google Webmaster Tools account stating that your site has ‘thin’ content and that you’ll have to correct this if you want success in Google’s search results.
‘Thin content’ refers to content that is non-original. They could be product descriptions that have been taken directly from the manufacturer or otherwise. It could be content that’s found all over the internet. Alternatively, it could also be an empty page with very little content on it.
Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Spam Search, has stated that affiliate sites are an example of how content placement could potentially go wrong. While there’s nothing wrong with affiliate sites to begin with, they still need to justify their existence by adding value.
Cutts also criticised article syndication for the proliferation of thin content. This involves taking articles from free article sites, like Wikipedia, which don’t really add value to your website at all.
So, if you’ve got a lot of thin content on your site, how do you get around it? It’s not too complicated, according to Cutts. The best way to solve the problem is to first remove all the thin content pages on your site. Then, replace the thin content with original content that you’ve written or that is unique to your site.
You should then consider other mediums of content to add value to your site. This could be videos, infographics or any other kind of media; Google tends to favour sites with wider range.