Can Dramatically Increasing Site Size Have Negative Effects?

[94501]

I have a site with about 1000 pages. I'm planning to add about 30,000 pages to it. Can increasing the footprint by such an amount all of a sudden have any negative consequences for existing organic or hoped-for benefits from new pages?

Would the site draw any increased scrutiny from Google for doing this?

Any other considerations?

Thanks... Darcy

[danatanseo]

Hi Darcy,

I don't think anyone here can give you a concrete answer to your question. If they do, be suspicious. If you add 30,000 pages of totally unique content....then I think you will skyrocket to the top of organic listings. If your content is substantially similar, or just copies of content from other places, then, it's not really going to help you at all. It might hurt you. It might not.

I;m not sure that's the answer you were looking for but I hope it's helpful!

Dana

[RobertFisher]

Darcy,

I think Dana makes the best point possible and that is...is the content GOOD? Is it something people are looking for? etc. 
To just add content is not helpful in my opinion. But, we have sites that we add 100's of pages a month to and it is all unique content around specific verticals. It is amazing to watch what happens as you add better and better content and more of it to a site.

Hope this helps. A question would be: Over what period and is the content already created?

[94501]

Hi Dana & BigFish22,

Both good points... thanks!

Here's a little more detail... the site has been about a certain product area for a long time. I'm adding catalog pages for 30,000 different products.

The pages are geared to searches around the word "buy" plus the product name. The pages are different from each other in that the product name, manufacturer, pictures, picture tagging, title & description tags all use different product names and other information. So, the pages are different from each other, but out of the gate not amazingly different from the basic info available on other sites that sell these products... all manufacturer data flowing into a template.

My plan is to put up the catalog and then over time add reviews and other content to make the pages really different from other site's catalog paes that draw on substantially the same basic information.

What do you think? Thanks! Best... Darcy

[RobertFisher]

Here's a question I often ask of our team: What are we spending our time on in terms of time cost vs. benefit? So, if putting in the 30K product pages is taking x amount of time, have you asked yourself - Why? Just to get clicks on some you don't have? Etc. So, if you were to take say the best 3000 and put the reviews, other content, etc. and when that was done then start on the next 3000 in the same way, would your result be improved? Would gaining PA on the ones you had truly optimized get you high enough that you can get more traffic to the site? Do you then keep improving at a rate that is augmenting where you are going?

So, instead of asking is this a good idea (and on the face it is), ask is this the best idea?

Hope it helps

[94501]

Hi Robert,

Good point. From a time cost to search benefit point of view, the initial set up is the big cost... getting the template right.

After that, if you're creating 3000 or 30,000 pages is really no extra time... just flowing in the data. So, with that in mind, wouldn't the site be better off search wise-with 10x the pages (30k vs 3k) to monetize the set-up cost over?

Also, having cut the list down already based on non-search criteria, I have no reliable way of knowing which of the 30,000 is better than the next search-wise. They're all kinda medium nichey with low volume and about the same estimated difficulty.  So, no idea which page would do better than the next in search.

Also, I can't look at 30,000 pages or even 3000 of search data to make that cut. Know what I mean? So, the cut, if there were one, would be random.

Thanks... Darcy