-
I made one page shorter and simpler and rankings improved
Posted by on April 2, 2026 at 7:59 pmI used to think more content = better SEO.
But I trimmed one page, removed fluff, made it easier to scan, and it actually started performing better.
Now I’m rethinking how much content is actually necessary.
-
1 Reply
-
Characters count ?
-
Removing fluff definitely helps. Content length doesn’t matter. neither does character count – but when you add fluff you dilute your semantic relevance to the actual topic – so more off topic fluff definitely hurts.
-
Yeah – nobody wants more content
Word count and “long form” are a fabrication from an industry that charges $/word
My first content pages to explore any new SEO topic are 50 words….
Its amazing – since LLMs – Content Writers and EEAT enthusiasts have dried up! Now wehn see an account mention EEAT – its LLM spam.
-
[removed]
-
I’ve been doing that with some older pages on my site that weren’t ranking well. I also republished them under new URLs that better aligned my new information architecture blueprint. So far Pages 1-3 consistently, jumping from AIO to bottom of 1/top to middle of 2 more recently.
-
You reminded me of a post here that said the last step in the poster’s writing process is trimming the article by at least a quarter of its length. Helps a lot in conciseness… At some point an article that is too long for the sake of being long can backfire. If you can answer the search intent in 500 words, adding 1500 more just hurts user experience and increases bounce rate.
-
You probably didn’t just make it shorter, you made it clearer.A lot of pages try to do too much and end up burying the actual answer. When you cut the fluff, it’s easier for both users and Google to understand what the page is about.
It’s less about length and more about matching intent. If someone finds what they need quickly, that’s what matters. More content only helps when it adds value. Otherwise it just gets in the way.
-
Following
Log in to reply.