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I know that SERPs depends on many factors like backlinks, page authority, keywords placement etc. But I noticed that Google also look for the word count of the article.

  • In 2010,2011 articles with 250+ word count got ranked in Google. But in 2012,2013 the trend was different, If the post is 500+ words, it is likely to get ranked top in Google compared to 250 word count articles.

  • In late 2013 we can see that all SEO bloggers(who watch the SEO trends) started to publish articles with 1500+ word count and they ranked better that the 500+ word count articles.

  • Now I was googling for making a review about external HDDs and I found this post http://goo.gl/J54Fzm. Its word count is 12K and got ranked top for the keyword "portable hdd review" in just 5 days. The ranking will depend on many factors but I am a bit confused about the word count.

MOZ, Searchengineland and other SEO specialists suggest in 2014 to keep the word count near to 1.5k

Q: What should be the word count of an article for better ranking in 2014?

NB: Please don't mark this as a duplicate question. These questions are asked two years before. And I am asking about the trend in 2014. The image attached is from a post about word count published in march-2014.

What should a page's minimum word count be in order to be effectively indexed?

Ideal word count per web page? enter image description here

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Google doesn't care about the length of your articles. It cares about whether your page satisfies the searchers that it sends to your site. With that in mind, the length of your articles should be:

  • Long enough to inform the user.
  • Short enough that most users read the whole thing.

There is no "minimum length" for web pages to be indexed. Web pages often get indexed with just a page title when the content is graphical in nature. If your pages have content that is textual, survey some users and figure out if it is enough to answer their questions.

If you are worried about articles being too long, put some tracking metrics on them. For example, implement a Google Analytics plugin for scroll depth.

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    So you are telling there is nothing called as ideal word count for an article? Articles with a few words also get indexed but I am talking about getting ranking in top. For competitive KWs it does not matter at all? I can see every one making their posts >1.5k – Indra Mar 30 '14 at 11:58
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    @owleye there may be an ideal word count for users, but not for any search engine. – DisgruntledGoat Mar 30 '14 at 15:57
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    It will also depend on the complexity of your topic. Simple topics demand short articles. – Stephen Ostermiller♦ Mar 30 '14 at 16:30
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    Correlation does not equal causation. Like I said, users might like articles of certain length so they get linked/shared more. Google doesn't do anything special for them. – DisgruntledGoat Mar 30 '14 at 17:52
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    Google doesn't count the words on your page for ranking. Write great content, don't count words. – John Mueller Apr 1 '14 at 18:57
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As per the new google algorithm, it is good to have long articles, from 700-1500 words is good.

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I believe the length of the content is not as important as the quality anymore, thus making the unique, informative, shorter is better, easy to understand articles on your website better for Google. They have made some significant changes recently, requiring us to be more creative.

Another good technique for better ranking could be the social signals - I believe this works in a direct connection to good,short,informative,unique content.

You shouldn't care so much about word count anymore.

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