Pages that are written for machines
Most page problems come from the same root cause: the page was built to look good to a search engine rather than to help a person. These pages tend to be either too empty or too crowded. Understanding the patterns makes them easy to spot, and the fix is nearly always to write for the reader.
Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is repeating a word or phrase far more often than natural writing would. It was once a popular tactic, and it still shows up on old or auto-generated pages. Search engines have long said that it is not a good practice and it may be treated as spam.
What it looks like:
- The same phrase in nearly every sentence, sometimes forced into awkward grammar.
- Lists of towns, services or phrases dumped at the bottom of a page.
- Repeating the phrase in the title tag, description, headings and image alt text.
- Text hidden by matching it to the background color, or placing it off-screen.
Here is a hypothetical example. A stuffed paragraph might read: “Our garden shed company sells garden sheds. If you need a garden shed, our garden sheds are the best garden sheds.” A natural rewrite would be: “We build wooden sheds in several sizes, and we can help you pick one that fits your yard and your budget.” The second says more, reads like a person wrote it and still mentions the topic.
A good test is to read the page aloud. If it sounds odd, a visitor will notice too.
How to fix it
- Read the page and remove repetition until it sounds natural.
- Use synonyms and related terms, the way people talk.
- Replace lists of phrases with real sentences or delete them.
- Delete hidden text entirely.
- Check the title, headings and alt text for the same repetition.
Thin content
Thin content means a page has little or nothing of value. It does not have to be short: a long page can be thin if it only rephrases what is available everywhere or says nothing specific. Typical cases include:
- Pages with a few lines and no real answer.
- Automatically generated pages, such as empty category or tag pages.
- Scraped or lightly reworded text from other sites.
- Many near-identical pages with a town or product name swapped, sometimes called doorway pages.
- Affiliate or listing pages that add nothing beyond what the source already says.
Thin pages waste a visitor’s time and are often the same ones that turn up as soft errors. Large numbers of them can also make a site look low in quality overall.
How to fix it
For each thin page, ask what useful thing it could offer, then pick one route:
- Expand with real information: specifics, examples, steps, photos you took yourself, answers to common questions.
- Merge it into a related page that already covers the subject, a process described in the article on content pruning.
- Remove or hide it if it serves no purpose, using the right redirect or noindex.
Do not pad a page with filler to reach a word count. Length is not the goal; completeness for the reader is. See what helpful content looks like for a fuller picture of that standard.
Copied and duplicate pages
Copying text from another site, or repeating the same text across many of your own pages, gives search engines no reason to choose any one version. Find duplicate content, then either rewrite the pages to say something distinct, combine them, or point to one preferred version with canonical tags. Product descriptions pasted from a supplier are a very common source. Writing even a short original paragraph is a start.
Other common page problems
Missing or duplicate titles. Many pages with the same title are hard to tell apart in results. Give each its own descriptive label.
Pages with no clear purpose. If you cannot say in one sentence what the page is for, the visitor cannot either.
Mismatched intent. A page written to attract a phrase that it does not actually answer. Check whether it fits the search intent.
Excessive ads or pop-ups. Content buried under clutter is hard to use, especially on small screens.
Outdated pages. Facts that are no longer true hurt trust. Revisit them as part of regular content freshness checks.
Hidden or misleading links. Links placed only for search engines, or labeled one way and leading somewhere else, harm trust and may count as manipulation.
Rewriting for readers
When you rewrite a page, work from the visitor’s question. Write down who the page is for and what they want to know, outline the answer under clear headings, and then write plainly. Include the page’s main topic where it belongs, mostly in the title and the opening, and let the rest read naturally. Add specific detail only you can offer.
No rewrite can promise a better position. But pages that are clear, specific and honest are better for visitors, and they avoid the risks that come with over-optimizing.