Thin content detectionWhat it checks and how to fix it

What it checks

On article-style pages, counts the words of main body text, leaving out navigation, header and footer. It passes at 300 words or more and warns below that; pages that are not article-like are skipped.

Why it matters

Short articles rarely answer a query well enough to rank, and a site with many of them sends search engines a low-quality signal that can affect its stronger pages too. AI search tools also prefer complete, self-contained answers they can quote, so thin pages are seldom cited.

How to fix it

Pick the option that fits each page:

1. It should be substantial: expand it until it fully answers the search intent, with specifics, examples, data and an FAQ. Look at the pages that rank for the topic today and be at least as complete.
2. Several thin pages cover the same topic: merge them into one strong page and redirect the others to it.
3. It has no standalone value (a tag page, a filter, a placeholder): keep it out of the index while still letting crawlers follow its links:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">

A permanent redirect for merged pages, in nginx:

location = /blog/dmarc-basics { return 301 /blog/dmarc-guide; }

or in Rails config/routes.rb:

get "/blog/dmarc-basics", to: redirect("/blog/dmarc-guide", status: 301)