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Indexing & Sitemaps · Guide #11

Content Rules

Automatically filter thin content from your sitemaps, set minimum word counts, configure automatic exclusions, and review exactly which pages were excluded and why.

⏱ 4 min read 👤 Intermediate 📦 v6.5+

Where to Find This Tab

Go to SEO Rank Genius → Indexing & Sitemaps → Content Rules (second tab under the “Content” group).

Thin Content Control

Thin content pages (low word count, no useful information) waste crawl budget and can hurt your site’s overall search quality. This section lets you automatically filter them from sitemaps.

Exclude Thin Content Automatically
Exclude pages with low word count from sitemaps
Minimum Word Count
Pages with fewer words = thin content
300

Ignore Word Count For

Certain pages are intentionally short but still valuable. Exempt them from the thin content filter:

  • Pillar Pages — Pages you’ve designated as pillar content in the post editor are never excluded, regardless of word count.
  • Legal Pages — Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, and similar legal pages are exempt by default.
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Recommended minimum: 300 words for blog posts, 200 for landing pages. Pages under 100 words are almost always thin content.

Automatic Exclusions

Beyond word count, the plugin can automatically exclude pages based on their status:

SettingWhat It Does
Exclude Noindex PagesPages marked noindex by any SEO plugin are automatically removed from sitemaps. Keeps your sitemap consistent with your indexing directives.
Exclude Drafts & PrivateDraft and private posts are never included in sitemaps. Always keep this on.

Smart Exclusion Reasons

Every excluded URL is tagged with a specific reason so you can understand why it was removed:

✕ Thin content ✕ No internal links ✕ Duplicate intent ✕ Low authority

These tags appear in the Excluded Content Details table below, making it easy to audit and fix problem pages.

Excluded Content Details

Below the settings card, a second card lists every excluded page with:

  • The page title and URL
  • The specific exclusion reason (thin content, noindex, etc.)
  • Word count
  • A link to edit the page

Use the Refresh button to re-scan your content after making changes. The table updates in real time via AJAX without a page reload.

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No excluded content? If the list is empty, you’ll see a “No excluded content” message with a green checkmark — meaning all your content passes the quality threshold.

Troubleshooting

Important Pages Getting Excluded

  • Increase the minimum word count on those pages, or lower the threshold in settings.
  • Mark the page as a Pillar Page in the post editor to exempt it.
  • Check if the page is accidentally marked noindex.

Excluded List Not Loading

  • Click Refresh to retry the AJAX request.
  • Ensure thin content filtering is enabled — the list only appears when the toggle is on.