Thin content is any page that fails to deliver substantive value relative to the user's intent. It's not about word count alone. A 200-word answer can be perfectly sufficient if it fully addresses the query, while a 2,000-word page stuffed with filler is still thin if it doesn't answer the question or add unique insight. Google identifies thin content through several signals: high bounce rates, short dwell time, duplicate or auto-generated text, affiliate pages with no original commentary, doorway pages targeting slight keyword variations, and scraped content with minimal additions. The Panda algorithm update in 2011 specifically targeted thin content at scale, and core updates continue refining detection. Common thin content patterns include: - Product pages with only manufacturer descriptions and no reviews or context - Blog posts that reword existing articles without new data or perspective - Category or tag pages with just a sentence and a list of links - Location pages created by template ("Ottawa plumber", "Toronto plumber") with identical text - AI-generated content that sounds fluent but adds nothing new to the topic The penalty isn't always manual. Most thin content simply doesn't rank because Google's algorithms recognize it adds nothing to the index. Sites with a high ratio of thin pages may see their entire domain's authority diluted—Google allocates crawl budget poorly, and strong pages get dragged down by weak ones. At Ottawa SEO, we audit portfolios by checking impressions-to-clicks ratios in Search Console and identifying pages with under 10 monthly impressions after six months. Those are candidates for consolidation, expansion, or deletion. When we inherited domains with 400+ thin blog posts, we've seen organic traffic double after pruning 60% of the content and redirecting URLs to stronger, consolidated pages. Quality density matters more than page count. If a page wouldn't satisfy you as a user, it's likely thin.