Adding Content = Higher Rankings?

Someone clue me in on this concept

[Swebbie]

OK, I'm having trouble making a causal connection here. It seems to be accepted fact that adding new content to a website regularly will help it rank higher. I understand that consistently adding new content will bring the SE spiders around more often to index the new stuff, and that's always a good thing. BUT, someone please explain how adding new content regularly actually helps improve a different page's rankings. What I'm missing here is the link between how adding an article a day, let's say, which is a separate page on a site, will help the homepage rank higher for the main keyword. Do you see what I mean? The two do not seem connected, not from a ranking standpoint.

[joaquin112]

when you write a good page of content, and someone links to it, Google will regard you as an authority. The simple fact of increasing the number of pages does not seem to matter much IMO. Can someone else share experience?

[caveman]

That's part of it.

I also think that having the bots come regularly to check things out, possibly depending upon your category and/or the kind of site you are, may also signal vitality of the site, which may in some way fit into some algos as a positive characteristic.

Then there is the fact, and think it was G who came out and said something like this, that as many as half of all searches last year were unique, one-time-only search phrases. Point being, the more original pages you have being created, the more longer tail terms you're gonna pick up. The bots keep indexing those new pages, with new content, and volume steadily climbs.

More pages = more spider food, more content to potentially rank for, more content to potentially attract IBL's (variation of IBL's to home and old and new subpages a definite plus).

All of this assumes of course that the content being added is unique and worthwhile. ;-)