I’ve noticed that some websites rank well with minimal content—just a title and a brief description. I’m curious if it’s possible for such sites to compete against those with more detailed content. Many of these websites focus on wallpapers. I have observed that sites with longer articles (around 500-1,000 words) often don’t make it to the top 20, while others with AI-generated content under 300 words seem to rank on the first page. How is this happening?
To answer your question, as you already noticed, the answer is YES.
There’s a misunderstanding.
A site about wallpapers (assuming you mean digital wallpapers, not physical ones) does have a lot of content: wallpapers. Nowhere in Google or any other search engine is content defined strictly as ‘text.’ In fact, Google has gone through phases where it favored media-rich websites (images, videos, etc.), and they still tend to prioritize them today.
Basically, you need to think like Google: if a user searches for wallpapers, your site better have wallpapers—the more, the better. That’s called (as you may have guessed)… CONTENT. But if your site requires explanations, you need media, text, and keywords. If it’s about code, you should have code examples. If it’s about celebrities, you’ll need images, videos, and maybe 200-300 words at most.
TL;DR: Content is content, but it varies depending on the niche.
@Stephanie
It’s always good to scroll through the comments… lots of insights here.
People saying you can’t rank without content have never built a site without content.
EvansBrown14 said:
People saying you can’t rank without content have never built a site without content.
Many tool websites rank without content.
EvansBrown14 said:
People saying you can’t rank without content have never built a site without content.
Many tool websites rank without content.
The tool is the content.
Context Is King
Yes, 100%. Lots of sites rank on their home page without much content. But that content is in the site or is synonymous. You don’t need pages and pages of words. You can use tables, data, results, information.
Content and word count is an invention of the content writing industry.
In general, a site needs content, authority, and links. But there are exceptions. If Google believes that the page fulfills the user’s intention, then it can rank well without much text content.
Sometimes we also see sites with a lot of relevant content rank with almost zero links.
Sometimes we also see sites with a lot of relevant content rank with almost zero links.
Nobody has ever shared these… ever.
Because content has never been king.
Dojacat said:
Because content has never been king.
I feel it, and it’s sad for small sites.
Dojacat said:
Because content has never been king.
Never. Context is King.
It’s always a combination of authority and relevance that determines a high-ranking page or site.
If a site has authority, it can generally rank as long as it has some kind of content targeting the keyword, even if it’s incredibly thin.
If a site of equal authority produces content that better meets a searcher’s intent, it would be outranked easily.
After that, it’s a balancing act of authority and quality. Google will say that content is all that’s really needed, but authority is the key.
As a last point, what is the point of ranking without content anyway? What would the user experience be? It’s a false victory.
There are a lot of factors that go into ranking; content is just one of them. For keywords where people are looking to shop or just get a simple answer, more in-depth content can harm your ranking. If you’re trying to rank for a specific keyword, don’t just rely on SEO basics. Look at what actually ranks for that keyword and find common trends.
Question for you and the community—by ‘content’ do you mean general word count on all pages including money pages, or specifically info-intent blog articles? Are you referring to volume of blog articles, word count on those blog articles, or word count on the money pages, or just word count sitewide? But the answer for all scenarios is the same—‘it depends.’ High-quality content and word counts are incredibly important when necessary to match the searcher’s intent. If Google doesn’t see the keywords naturally inserted into the language, how else will they know to rank you? But it’s one part of the pie—links, technical, UX, etc. But it’s an easier part of the pie than, say, links. So all else equal, of course, why not build out high-quality, intent-matching body copy on your pages? It’s low-hanging fruit. But don’t just blabber with thousands of AI-generated words to get the word count up. Include robust yet concise copy that naturally inserts your keywords and all of its variants.
If you have sufficient authority signals, you can rank without content.
Is that usually the case? Absolutely not.
Mia said:
If you have sufficient authority signals, you can rank without content.
Is that usually the case? Absolutely not.
Or with very low authority like my site.
I rank product pages with very little content that is very similar to competitors’ content, sometimes above the highest authority sites in the industry. I have no blogs either, whereas they have 50+ pages of articles that are heavily shared via backlinks. It all depends. There isn’t any set rule about this stuff as every situation and rank is unique.
But you answered your own question. Since you are observing it, you are proving that it can happen. Sometimes our own observations are the best way to answer these questions.
Low-content pages often use schemas to convey more information, especially visually dominated UIs.
Adding schemas to pages with low content has more impact on your SEO since the August update.
Yes, sites can rank well with minimal content, especially if they optimize for specific keywords and provide a good user experience. Here are a few reasons why this happens:
- Keyword Targeting
- User Intent
- Technical SEO
- Backlinks
- AI-Generated Content
- Engagement Metrics
To sum up, while comprehensive content is often valuable, other factors can lead to competitive rankings for sites with minimal content.
40 mini