{"id":2455,"date":"2017-01-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canirank.com\/blog\/?p=2455"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:50:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T18:50:08","slug":"does-long-content-rank-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.canirank.com\/blog\/does-long-content-rank-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Data-driven SEO Part 2: Does Long Content Really Rank Better?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many SEOs have made the claim that long content ranks better, but…<\/p>\n

Is this yet another example of confusing correlation vs causation?<\/p>\n

Does longer content just earn more links?<\/p>\n

Do bigger, more authoritative sites publish longer content?<\/p>\n

Is longer content just better optimized?<\/p>\n

Or\u2026 will publishing longer content really<\/span>\u00a0help you<\/span>\u00a0rank better?<\/p>\n

As one of the best SEO software for small business<\/a>, CanIRank is in a unique position to understand why<\/span>\u00a0sites rank where they do. Thus, in line with our preference for\u00a0data-driven SEO<\/em><\/a>, this article is going to dig deeper into the question of content length vs. rank to determine whether this recommendation is actually supported by data.<\/p>\n

What Other Content Length SEO Studies Have Found<\/h2>\n

The question of whether longer content ranks better is one that has been asked many times. If long content does indeed rank better,\u00a0then writing posts that target tougher keywords, regardless of their keyword difficulty score<\/a>, may be viable.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if you can get away with shorter content, why not? Anyone involved in\u00a0SEO for startups<\/a>\u00a0or small business understands the challenge of working on a tight budget. Money saved on content creation can be used elsewhere for SEO.<\/p>\n

Before we lend our voice to the debate, let\u2019s review some of the more prominent studies on this issue.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Brian Dean<\/strong> conducted a study<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on \u201cwhich factors correlate with first-page search engine rankings.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0Content length was one of the characteristics examined in his research and he concluded that \u201clonger content tends to rank higher in Google\u2019s search results.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 Here\u2019s the graph he used to support his conclusion.<\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At first glance, this graph looks appealing. Except for the small bump in the number two position, everything goes downhill from here. Notice that this graph emphasizes how the word count drops along with the Google ranking. To an untrained eye, it\u2019s very easy to jump to the conclusion that longer content ranks better<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Capsicum Mediaworks<\/strong> conducted their study<\/a><\/span>\u00a0four years earlier and came to essentially the same conclusion. \u201cThis does point to the trend that higher ranked sites have more content.\u201d <\/span>\u00a0The graph has a similar shape even though the absolute numbers differ.<\/p>\n


\n\"Capsicum<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again, the information seems to say: longer content ranks better.\u00a0<\/span>To their credit, they do point out that this graph is an aggregate of all the SERPs analyzed. Further on in the study, they conclude that \u201ccontent length is just not playing a very significant factor in their ranking\u201d<\/span>\u00a0for sites that are \u201cwell branded and have a lot of other signals going for them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Interestingly, a third study<\/a><\/span>\u00a0from CognitiveSEO came to a different conclusion. \u201cAt least for the first 5 rank positions, one could assume that, on average, shorter articles are better correlated with a higher rank.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"CognitiveSEO<\/p>\n

Despite the effort put into conducting these three studies, we were still left wondering if there was something more behind this pattern. The conflicting results have left us no closer to really answering the key question: <\/span>does longer content rank better<\/b>?\u00a0<\/span>So we decided to dig deeper.<\/p>\n

Why Our SEO Content Length Study Is Different<\/h2>\n

Our study is unique because rather than just looking for a correlation and drawing a conclusion from that one data point, we’re going to use CanIRank’s ability to show us why sites rank where they do and see if we can discover the underlying causal mechanism behind the correlation. This is more consistent with the scientific method, where one would never draw a conclusion without at least having a hypothesis about why a certain effect manifests.<\/p>\n

While some studies have included up to a million URLs, what we’re doing differently is that we’re transparently communicating how robust different conclusions are.<\/p>\n

<\/span>\n

Content Length For SEO: What We Discovered<\/h2>\n

Take a look at our graph of Content Length by Rank<\/span>. For positions one to ten, it looks eerily similar to that of the Banklinko and SerpIQ studies. Although there is a correlation, let\u2019s not jump to any conclusions. There are a couple of weaknesses we need to address first.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"content<\/a><\/p>\n

Weakness #1: Is the effect really that large?<\/h3>\n

For the previous graph, we deliberately set the scale between 850 and 1150 on the Y-axis (content length) to create a particular emphasis. In fact, it\u2019s the type of scale that you saw in those other studies.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the arbitrary scales used by other studies can be very misleading. They make such effects appear more dramatic than they actually are.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take our same data and place it on a scale of 0 to 2500 for the Y axis (content length). This time we\u2019ll look at Google rankings from 1 to 40 on the X-axis to see if we can find any demonstrable patterns.<\/p>\n

\"does<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notice the substantial difference between the two graphs? Same data, two separate scales but dramatically different appearances.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the effect doesn\u2019t appear to be that large. The slope is far less on this graph than the previous one. However, there\u2019s another weakness we have yet to address.<\/p>\n

Weakness #2: Does it only apply to the top 20 results?<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s return to using the same scale typically used by other studies so that we can exaggerate the effect once again. There\u2019s a steep slope for position 1 through 20 but after that, it flattens out considerably. So the correlation between content length and rank isn\u2019t as strong for positions above 20.<\/p>\n

\"will<\/a><\/p>\n

There Appears to Be A Small Effect, But Why?<\/h2>\n

So longer content is correlated with higher ranks<\/strong>, but\u2026<\/p>\n