Amount of content
Silktide counts the words on your website and tracks the total word count and the average words per page over time. This is a measurement rather than a test - it does not flag problems on individual pages.
Why this matters
The amount of content on your website is a useful health signal when watched over time:
- Growth - a steadily rising word count shows your publishing effort is actually landing on the live site.
- Early warning - a sudden drop can reveal deleted sections, a broken template that hides text, or a migration that lost pages, often before anyone notices by hand.
- Context - average words per page helps distinguish a site of substantial articles from one of thin stub pages, which matters for how well content can answer visitors' and search engines' questions.
More words are not automatically better - padding pages with filler reads as spammy to both people and search engines. Aim for substantial, relevant content, and use these numbers to watch the trend rather than chase a target.
How Silktide tests this
- Count the words in the visible text of each page and document as it is crawled.
- Add these up to a total word count for the website, and divide by the number of pages for the average words per page.
- Record both figures on every scan, so you can see how they change over time.