Any negative effect on current rankings from adding many new pages?

[iNET_SEO]

Hi Folks,

Here is a scenario I have to try and get some answers on.

The website I work for is looking to introduce around 30,000 pages with the aim of hitting some big phrases - highly contented, high traffic.

However, the site in its current state is targeting a particular phrase for which we are top 3 for about 14,000 phrases. This nets us around 600,000 unique visitors per month.

What I am trying to do is get some opinions on if you think this introduction of 30,000 pages will have any negative effect on our current search terms - will these pages dilute our link-juice to the stage where our phrases start to drop in Google? Is there anything that we might see happen?

My thinking is that no, it will not happen, but I need to get some opinions on this to show my MD so any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Andy

[goodroi]

it all depends on how you implement the pages and the state of your current site.

you didnt say how large your current site is or how the internal navigation is setup. lets have fun and assume the worst case scenario that you only have 10 pages and only use run of site (ros) links and that the new pages are coded purely with flash. if that is the case then adding 30,000 ros links would likely dilute your current ranking power and since the pages are all in flash you get no content boost from google.

lets go to another extreme and say you have 1,000,000 existing pages that are perfectly interlinked with some ROS links but mostly relevant links embedded in content. then adding 30,000 pages which are also properly interlinked would likely not hurt your rankings. it may even boost them. if you do this right you'll attract links since the content is so great it makes you the industry authority which then gets bloggers & reporters linking back. not to mention the countless low value links you'll get from scraper & aggregating websites sucking up your 30,000 pages.

it is generally wise to avoid dramatic changes as it increases the chances of triggering a google filter. you may want to gradually launch the 30,000 pages if it is going to substantially increase your website size. also this will help you to monitor the situation to make sure you setup the internal navigation properly. poor site structure & linking can destroy a large site.

good luck :)

[iNET_SEO]

Luckily we are the latter scenario :)

There are around 85,000 pages, everything is pure, static HTML, links are informative and obvious.

You are correct that this would be introduced over a couple of months so as not to appear to be spamming and suddenly just slap 30,000 new pages on the site.

We are into out 11th year now and still going strong - Google seems to Like us right now!

Thanks for the input :)

Andy

[iNET_SEO]

Just so I can go back to my MD with opinions, even if they are all the same, that this (if done correctly) should not lose us positions, can anyone else offer any thoughts or opinions?

Thanks,

Andy

[BenFox]

So long as you're careful with your site architecture I doubt it will hurt your existing rankings. Although as 30,000 pages is a lot of content (6,000,000+ words?) my main concern would be whether or not you're filling your site with junk.

[iNET_SEO]

Hi Ben,

No, it is far from junk :) Let's just say we have access to a veritable army of people who can help us with this. I can't say too much, for obvious reasons though.

And it is likely to be closer to 15,000,000 words. I am so glad I am not doing this on my own!

Regards,

Andy