Will adding a lot of content to an existing site dilute the sites ranking power?

[bartman]

I have a site 10 yrs plus old. It has dropped from a decent peak in 2019 - around 5k uniques a day (site had 100 posts) down to around 500 unique visits a day right now. It has bounced up and down with the last couple of years algo updates. The main problem - I think - is that the niche just became much more competitive. At the start there were only similar small websites ranking - now it is dominated by bigger sites with large budgets and lots of (dodgy) guest posting - oh and the content is really crap but it works.

Over the last year and a half or so I have been adding content - targeting low competition keywords in closely related subjects - so not going out of the niche altogether. I also kept updating and improving (I hope) the original content. The thing is adding content hasn't changed the overall direction of the traffic. I do rank for some lower competition kws but then I drop traffic on existing terms. Up 20% down 20%.

I'm planning to give it a last big kick to see if I can boost the site. Planning to publish 100 plus posts (the site has around 200 now) Targetting lower comp kws. My question is will adding content quickly take away strentgh from the exising posts? I remember reading somewhere (I know duh) the theory that adding a lot of content relative to the site size could spread the ranking power (juice or whatever) thinly and lose traffic.

I also remember reading something from Kyle Roof that each new page actually adds a tiny bit of page rank to a site. What are the thoughts on this please.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Adding content can theoretically reduce the amount of page rank flowing to each page, simply because there's more pages. 100 "juices" across 100 pages equals 1 juice per page. Spread that across 500 pages and it's 0.2 "juices" per page.

But the every page generates it's own amount of page rank juice, too. That's how it's generated and calculated by Google in the first place, and then is passed around by links.

I think you've already identified the issue. Bigger, stronger sites are beating you now. You'll either need to become stronger or target keywords they aren't targeting so your direct competition in those SERPs is less strong than you.

That's the problem with the new AI content rush (and I'm not saying this is you, but it illustrates a problem). Some people are currently thinking "Why should I spend time and money buying links when I can generate 1,000 posts for $10" or whatever. "Why should I hire real writers or write myself when I can just generate 1,000 posts instead". It's become the answer and replacement for nearly everything. It's the answer for anyone who doesn't want to compete, but wants to fill in the gaps where there is no competition yet.

But you see where that lands you. Competition creeps in eventually. Yes, more content is good, but you have to have links, too, which are a fundamental part, if not THE fundamental part to the Google algorithm. Another issue that you may be facing as it rolls out to pretty much every niche other than the silliest of hobby niches is EEAT. A part of that is links and a part of that is exhibiting experience, expertise, authority, and trust on the site itself (author boxes, contact pages, about pages, author profile pages, and so forth). Again, not you because I don't know your site, but you wouldn't believe the number of people I've known who've been in the game 10-15 years who still don't have author boxes or even an about page or a contact page.

 

[bartman]

Yeah - I have done the eat thing - at least with good contact and about, author boxes etc. Address and phone too. Multiple email addresses. A lot of the competition haven't even tried with eat but they do build a lot of obviously paid guest posts. My site has always been lacking in links and as competition increased I got left behind a bit. A lesson in there!

Agree about the backlinks being a major part now (as always) and can see it as being even more so with all the AI content. Some people seem to be going all in for topical authority and not building links. Links will be the difference even in low comp serps. Google will have to pick winners from all those longtail AI articles. Thanks for your guidance.

 

[Smith]

I had a similar-sized site (150 articles) that got nailed by Google. Very competitive YMYL niche. Site was not optimized for E-A-T and the articles we're not very well optimized. Did a complete overhaul for E-A-T, revamped the site structure for better link flow, and then 10x'd the amount of content. Have seen a dramatic increase in DR, traffic, etc. So, at least in my case, more content has been a huge plus. But I don't think it would have worked as well if the initial restructure and E-A-T factors were not taken care of first.

Oh, and this revamp happened over the course of about 10 months from initial planning to 10x'ing content, which resulted in about a 6x traffic increase. And, I started building links at about month six, which I think really helped ramp up gains in the following four months.