Checks
Word count by page type
Compares each page's word count against a minimum expected for its page type, since a home, article, product, or listing page all need different amounts of substance.
What this check looks for
Every page is classified into a type (home, article, product, listing, or other), each with its own warn and fail word-count thresholds: home pages warn under 100 words and fail under 30; articles warn under 300 and fail under 100; product pages warn under 150 and fail under 50; listing pages warn under 80 and fail under 20; everything else warns under 120 and fails under 40. A page meeting or exceeding its warn threshold passes. Pages that didn't return a 2xx response report "na".
Why it matters
Word count is a rough proxy for whether a page actually has enough substance to be worth ranking or citing — a page under its fail threshold usually means there's little more than a heading and a call-to-action button, with nothing for a search engine or a person to evaluate. Thresholds vary by page type deliberately: a product page doesn't need 300 words of prose to be useful, but an article claiming to explain a topic does. AI answer engines summarizing or quoting a page need enough surrounding text to extract a defensible claim — a page this thin rarely gives them one.
How to fix it
Add substantive, page-type-appropriate copy rather than padding with filler:
<!-- Article page, currently ~40 words: fails its 100-word minimum -->
<article>
<h1>How Noise Cancellation Works</h1>
<p>ANC uses microphones to cancel outside noise.</p>
</article>Expand thin pages with real detail — how it works, why it matters, specific examples — or, if a page genuinely doesn't need much text (a simple redirect or utility page), consider whether it should be indexed at all.
See how your site scores on this check