We know Google has told us for many years that word count is not a thing, Google doubled down on it last year. Google’s John Mueller reiterated that over the weekend saying not just words on a page but also links on a page are not counted by Google.
John Mueller from Google wrote on LinkedIn:
The comments above were in response to the question asked found below:
The topic of word count and its relevance to Google SEO has been covered numerous times. In 2023, Google made it clear that word count isn’t a ranking factor, even significantly reducing the length of its own SEO starter guide to emphasise this point. Back in 2022, Google reiterated that word count doesn’t determine the usefulness of content. As far back as 2019, John from Google confirmed that word count doesn’t influence rankings, and in 2018, he noted that it doesn’t correlate with content quality either. Short articles are not penalised by Google, and in fact, they can rank just as well as longer ones. This has been consistently stated, including in 2014, when Google clarified that short content isn’t necessarily low quality. Recently, Google has advised against including unnecessary content, sparking speculation that excessive fluff might be less favourable for rankings in the future.