Has SEO become an unmanageable beast similar to a monolithic computer code that has been continually patched for decades when it really needs to be wiped out and rebuilt from scratch? Some would argue it has. To prove the point, they refer to a Google API leak that first began making the rounds in early 2024. If the leak is legit, it means big things for the average SEO company.
Consider content length. How many blog posts written around content length have you read over the last 5-6 years? I have seen posts insisting that the optimal word length is 500 words. I’ve seen others that had optimal length at 2,000 words. I have seen everything in between.
Trying to define optimal word length seems a bit obtuse in light of what the world has learned from the API leak. Without getting into all the details of Google’s APIs, the most important thing every SEO company needs to know heading into 2025 is that content length is meaningless compared to content quality.
Google Needs to Understand It
In an excellent post on content length, Search Engine Land’s Amanda King discussed what she calls “hops”. Hops occur when content creators create overly complicated material or pieces full of fluff and buzzwords designed only to reach a certain word count. As Google algorithms hop from one section to the next, they get lost in terms of understanding.
King says that Google algorithms need to:
- Understand the relationships between what you’re saying.
- Understand the explicit focus of what you are trying to communicate.
In essence, Google algorithms need to be able to connect the dots between points. They need to be able to follow your logic, as much as a bot can, in order to be able to understand what you’re trying to communicate.
Consumers Have to Want It
Regardless of word count, Google bots need to understand your content. But that is only half the battle. The other half is found in consumers wanting your content. If they don’t want it, it doesn’t matter how much Google understands it. Google is in the business of giving consumers what they want. They really don’t care about anything else.
What does this have to do with content length? King explains it by comparing the relationship between content length and data value. Her explanation is rooted in one of the key findings in the Google API leak: thin content is scored more on originality than length.
What this means is that a 200-word piece that directly answers a consumer’s question scores higher than a 600-word post that combines an indirect answer with a lot of fluff. The point is that length is not as important as quality and value.
King says that SEO creators should not necessarily be asking how long content should be. Rather, they should be asking whether the content they create directly answers the consumer’s needs.
Create for Consumers
The top priority for every SEO company going into 2025 is to create content for consumers. Where written content is concerned, word length is of little value compared to the information provided. Consumers want answers to their questions. They want solutions to their problems.
Continuing to produce fluffy content to satisfy an arbitrary word count doesn’t make sense. Leave fluff for viral videos about cats and dogs. In the world of semantic search, it is more important to be direct, concise, and forthcoming. If you can answer a question in 200 words, do it. If you really need 2000, that’s okay too. Just make every word valuable.
