• seohunters9

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Content Development
        4. Should cornerstone content have 3,500 words? Does Google discern words from the main text and from the references?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Should cornerstone content have 3,500 words? Does Google discern words from the main text and from the references?

        Content Development
        2
        4
        937
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • kvillalobos
          kvillalobos last edited by

          Is it true that cornerstone content should have at least 3,500 words? I've done some research and found that the recommended amount is between 2K-10k.

          Also, the content that we create/publish has a lot of references/citations at the end of each article. Does Google discern words from the main text and from the references? Meaning should I count references as part of the word count?

          Thanks for the help!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • MiriamEllis
            MiriamEllis Subject Expert @kvillalobos last edited by

            A Very Happy New Year to you, too! So glad my reply was helpful to you, and good luck with your publication.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • kvillalobos
              kvillalobos @MiriamEllis last edited by

              Thanks so much for your detailed response Miriam! This is very helpful. Happy New Year!

              MiriamEllis 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • MiriamEllis
                MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

                Hello There!

                Earlier this year, we had a good discussion about Cornerstone Content (a term that is widely used by Yoast though not by everyone else) here on the forum. You might like to take a look: https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/are-core-pages-considered-cornerstones.

                Yoast is a very respected company, and they've created some classic products. That being said, I personally question advice like this being given on their blog:

                "You’ll need to write an article of at least 900 words."

                _900 words _sounds to me more like a public school writing assignment than criteria for a professional writer or publisher. Let's talk about this.

                Wordstream has been kind enough to cite Moz's Beginner's Guide to SEO as a good example of cornerstone content. I've contributed to that guide along with other staff here, and can attest that a specific number of words was nowhere in the plan for contributing. Instead, the plan is to cover the topic at hand thoroughly, and this is what all good writing, both on and off the web, does. Because of this, while I can appreciate that there is a desire to know if there's a word count that impresses Google, I don't think it's a good way to think about writing or publishing. If it takes 500 words to explain something, write them. If it takes 10,000 words, write them. The point is to explain a topic to a reader in a way that engages them and results in them feeling fully informed.

                My best guess is that a company like Yoast is striving to offer some general guidelines for strong, lucrative publishing strategies, but when people start throwing set numbers around, it doesn't match my concept of building authority as a publication. I would rather that publishers focus on quality than word counts. The only time I can see the necessity of counting words is in offline publications that have limited paper space for an article. On the web, they sky's the limit, and the quality of what you publish is what wins readers.

                kvillalobos 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • vijay7796

                  Can I use expired domain content on My Blog

                  Hello Expert, I wanted to know, can I use expired domain content on my blog channel. I  have done many searches on google but couldn't find a satisfactory answer. Please help me to find out this.

                  Content Development | | vijay7796
                  0
                • ReunionMarketing

                  Does a "Read More" button to open up the full content affect SEO?

                  As we've been refining our metrics for gauging whether or not a blog is effective -- if people are engaging with it -- one of the strategies we've seen (e.g. NYT, WaPo, Yahoo!) is "Read More." I've read a few articles with some who advocate using it and others who discourage it. Does anyone have any history adding "Read More" to their content and the effect it had?

                  Content Development | | ReunionMarketing
                  0
                • ianizaguirre

                  Do you think its better to have a published date AND a last updated date ? Does google even look if you updated but left the published date old

                  Do you think its better to have a published date AND a last updated date on Posts ? Does google even look if you updated but left the published date old I was thinking of adding a "last updated" field to my articles. But is it worth it? or should I just keep it uncluttered and leave only the last published date? I would think that Google would not notice if I updated a last updated meta field since their is a published date field already.

                  Content Development | | ianizaguirre
                  1
                • danielreyes

                  References for Healthcare Blog Content?

                  Hey everyone, We have a couple B2C medical/healthcare clients we produce content for and I was wondering what the industry stance is when it comes to giving references at the end of a blog, assuming there were no statistics or direct quotes used in the content. A lot of our content is written via research on a specific condition/treatment and doesn't really dive deep into specific medical nuances. Things like risks, recovery timelines, questions to ask, etc. are written about mostly. Still, should we be providing general references at the end of blogs to sites like WebMD, Medscape, etc. Thanks for any input!

                  Content Development | | danielreyes
                  0
                • FOTF_DigitalMarketing

                  Duplicate Content behind a Paywall

                  We have a website that is publicly visible. This website has content. We'd like to take that same content, put it on another website, behind a paywall. Since Google will not be able to crawl those pages behind the paywall is there any risk to ua doing this? Thanks! Mike

                  Content Development | | FOTF_DigitalMarketing
                  0
                • gallreddy

                  How many words should be placed on a home page, category pages, and product pages?

                  To optimize content for a website, how many words should be provided for a home page, category page and a product page?

                  Content Development | | gallreddy
                  0
                • VinceWicks

                  What are tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 keywords (pages)?

                  I am seeing these terms, but for the life of mine I can't understand what they are. Could anybody explain that in layman's terms? Thanks.

                  Content Development | | VinceWicks
                  0
                • BobGW

                  Simple question: How many words optimal for blog posts

                  Hello, We're adding a blog to one of our sites. How many words should be in a blog post for it to be optimal for the search engines? If it varies from industry to industry, please give a couple of examples. We were going to do 500 words but that seems a bit long. Thanks!

                  Content Development | | BobGW
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.