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2000 words has never been the SEO optimal or standard length for articles. I've been involved in SEO for many, many years, 500 was always the standard.

Interesting. I know 500 was the standard. But my understanding is that the big Google updates (Panda et al) put paid to that model in favour of the "authority site" model, hence you're supposed to rank better for longer content.

I wonder if it only applies to new blogs though? Perhaps if you have good DA/PA/TTF metrics already then it doesn't actually matter about your content length.

Didn't know that! Great advice, I think that the origin of this might be in the fact that longer content is generally more researched and thus ranks better

Yeah, that is possible. However, correlation != causation ;)

With all due respect, one single article ranking #1 in Google hardly constitutes proof, or turns the argument into a myth.

I am genuinely interested in the answer to this though. The idea that the article has to be longer/more detailed than the competition makes total sense.