Padding to hit a word count

Padding to hit a word count

"Top results average 2,000 words, so make every page 2,000 words."

You've confused correlation with a quota.

The data is real — long content correlates with ranking. The mistake is reading a correlation as a target and padding thin topics to hit it. Comprehensive pages tend to be long because the topic demanded length, not because the author was filling a meter. Reverse the causality and you get bloat.

Here's what actually happens: a query that deserves a 400-word direct answer gets stretched to 2,000 with throat-clearing, restated points, and a 'what is' section nobody asked for. The padding pushes the actual answer below the fold, raises bounce, and dilutes the relevance you started with.

Fix: length should be an output of completeness, not an input. Cover the topic fully — every real subtopic, every reasonable follow-up question — then stop. If that's 600 words, it's 600 words. A tight page that answers fully beats a long one that stalls. (Nobody ever ranked for endurance.)