How to fix thin content pages

By Matt Kerr·Published 11 October 2026

A thin page has too little on it to answer what someone came for. The fix is not more words. Decide for each page which of four things it needs: to be written out properly, to be merged into a stronger page, to be kept out of the index, or to be left alone. Docket flags short pages as a way to find the candidates. Google has said it has no preferred word count.

What Google says

I read Google's guidance on helpful content on 11 October 2026: Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content. Its self-assessment asks whether the content gives a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic. It also asks whether you are writing to a particular word count because you have heard that Google has a preferred one, and answers the question itself: no, it does not.

So length is a weak signal and a useful one. A very short page is often an unfinished one, which is why it is worth looking at. A long page can still say nothing. The test is whether a reader who arrives with a question leaves with the answer.

What Docket reports

• Almost no content. Under sixty words of body text, reported as high severity.
• Thin. From sixty up to a hundred and fifty words, reported as medium.
• Search and utility pages that are indexable. Site search, carts, logins and confirmation pages are short because that is what they are for. Docket reports them separately, with a one-line fix.

It leaves several kinds of page alone. A section index, a page whose job is to list three or more pages beneath its own address, is skipped, because a short list is what an index should be. A page whose text arrives by JavaScript is skipped and left to the JavaScript check, because its served HTML says little about it. Tag, author and category archives are reported on their own with their own advice. The two bands are Docket's triage lines, not Google's.

Decide for each page

1. Does anyone search for this? Then write it properly. A page earns its place by what it tells the reader, so put in the specifics they came for: what is included, what it costs, how long it takes, who it suits and what happens next. A service page needs those. A definition may need three lines.
2. Is there a stronger page on the same subject? Then fold what is worth keeping into it, redirect the old address to it with a 301, and update the links that pointed at the old one. If two pages are chasing the same search, that is a different problem with the same fix. The redirects themselves are in how to fix redirect problems.
3. Does it have a job but nothing to rank for? Site search, a cart, a thank-you page. Add <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"> and leave the page alone. Nothing needs writing.
4. Is it an index? A category list, an A to Z, a tag or author page. Judge it on whether the list is worth having and whether anything links to it, not on its length.
5. Does it have no purpose at all? Remove it, and redirect it if anything links to it.

What not to do

Do not pad. Adding filler to cross a number clears a word count and changes nothing for the reader, and the reader is the test Google describes. Do not noindex a page you want to rank in order to quieten a finding. And do not delete a page that other pages link to without redirecting it, because the links break and the value they carried goes with the page.

A real before and after

I wrote a small fixture site for this page: a typewriter repair workshop, a dozen pages. I audited it with Docket on 11 October 2026, dealt with each short page in the way the list above suggests, and audited it again. The pages are ours; nothing here is measured on anyone else's site. Docket reported this, in its own words:

1 page has almost no content
Under 60 words of body text. Pages this sparse rarely rank for anything and, in volume, drag down how Google assesses the whole site.

3 pages are thin (60–150 words)
There is not enough here to answer a search intent fully, so these pages lose to competitors covering the same topic properly.

1 search or utility page is indexable

What I did, with Docket's word counts for each page:

On the second audit Docket reported none of the three findings. Two things in that table are worth reading. The section index at 34 words was never reported, before or after, because it lists the pages beneath it. And the words I added to the three expanded pages are filler written for the fixture, so that the counts would move. They are not the advice. On a real site, what takes a page out of the thin band is what it tells the reader, and Docket cannot judge that.

What Docket cannot tell you

• Whether a page is useful. It counts words. A contact page, a definition or a price list can be complete and short. A long page can be thin in everything but length.
• Whether a short page is meant to be short. It skips section indexes it can recognise by their links, but it cannot tell a deliberately brief page from an unfinished one. That is for you to decide, page by page.
• What a page looks like after JavaScript runs. It reads the served HTML, so a page built in the browser is left to the JavaScript finding rather than judged here.

Where to start

Start with the pages that sell. A thin page about a service you charge for is worth an afternoon; a thin page about nothing in particular may be worth a redirect. Sort the finding's list by what each page is for before you open the first one. The same finding is part of a wider content audit, and what Docket adds is the check across every page, ranked with the rest; see how that compares with other audit tools.

Common questions

What is thin content?

A page with too little on it to answer what the reader came for. Docket flags short pages as candidates, and the judgement about whether one is really thin is yours.

How many words should a page have?

Google says it has no preferred word count. A page should give a substantial, complete description of its topic, and some topics take three lines.

Should I noindex thin pages?

Only if the page has a job but nothing to rank for, such as site search or a cart. For a page you want found, write it properly or merge it into a stronger page and redirect.

Does Docket flag a section index as thin?

No. A page that lists three or more pages beneath its own address is treated as an index and left alone, because a short list is what an index should be.