Deleting old posts and pages

[byebyebaby]

I'm wondering, how many of you sometimes browse their websites and delete old posts and pages.
I'm really cleaning up my website and I have a lot of posts, 5 years and older that are just bad. I didn't know what I did back then. And decided to delete them.

Is that something that is best? Of what do you all think? Do?

 

[AleksUnder]

Many colleagues say that we need to delete all thin content or update it by adding additional information, changing structure, etc. I don't have many pages, so I update them. Otherwise, if these pages have links, but I stil want to delete them, I'd added 301 before it.

 

[preditor]

What do you mean by bad?
A golden rule in SEO is never to delete anything. If you can update the posts - that would be the best thing to do or add them in some sort of "archive".

Last thing to do is delete and 301 them - Just my thoughts!

 

[AussieDave]

STOP - do not delete anything!

If these posts/pages are obsolete, meaning, they're no long valid for a casino etc., you've since removed, or maybe even a country which you no longer target, your better leaving ALL that content up, and do a permanent 301 redirect. Removing that much content will REALLY hurt your SEO.

 

[gm2891]

Yeah 301 or update them. I personally believe in a theory that having a lot of useless thin content posts/pages with no value to anyone affect your whole site's SEO/rankings/authority, and that's been said many times by Googlers themselves.

Logically, what is the point of creating 300 thin content posts/pages if none of them ever receive any traffic? Instead, I think it is far better to create 30 high-quality pages with evergreen content.

Some info:

Search Engine Journal increased organic traffic and page views by more than 60% by removing and updating old content -- https://neilpatel.com/blog/outdated-content/

 

[leah_shepherd]

We try to update top-performing pages often (each 3-6 months), and low-performing pages once per year.

I agree you need to avoid lots of thin content pages, it's better to delete some of them to make sure your website's content is up-to-day.

Recently I've deleted lots of pages and I didn't see any viable impact on my ranking.

 

[edgarf76]

If they are mostly "fluff" or outdated deleting them and as AussieDave said redirecting them may be a good idea. Another thing, You can re-write the article, share it and and build some internal and external links to it. If you are not using the AREFS wordpress plugin, it can help you. First things first, bring the post/page into whatever seo tool you are using and see if it is generating any traffic, has links and social signals pointing to it. My two cents.

 

[AussieDave]

Recently I've deleted lots of pages and I didn't see any viable impact on my ranking.

What's recently? 1 week, a month!

Deleting pages/posts these days, can take a good 6+ months before the negative/positive impact of this decision shows in the SERPS. Unfortunately by that time, trying to fix a mistake like this, could take another 6+ months, or worse, it never repairs itself.

 

[byebyebaby]

I am updating most of the old posts now.
And only delete the once that are very poor. Back in the day I though a post with 100 words was fine. And also if a promotion of from 5 years ago and only had 150 words, I think deleting those is fine?
At least, I see a lot of articles saying that deleting old posts that are no longer relevant and have poor content is fine.

 

[Wesley Murphy]

We usually update low-performing by adding new content or changing pictures, structure or tables, but we do not delete old pages entirely.

 

[Thomas Andreas]

so to delete or not delete? what is the conclusion. with 2+ years old content?

 

[leah_shepherd]

so to delete or not delete? what is the conclusion. with 2+ years old content?

Depending on the metrics (built links, word count, org traffic, traffic potential and etc.).
If a page being 2 years old still attracts users, it's much better to improve (extend, optimize with keywords, promote) than delete it.
In case the page has no value, no traffic, links and etc, you may delete it.

 

[Imre]

Pruning is recommended if you have a lot of no value "zombie" pages. A good example to get rid of pages (or at least noindex them) is an unnecessary amount of category pages that are normally paginated and creating massive numbers of obsolete pages, pretty much listing the same content. You often see this with tag/category pages on Wordpress sites. I prefer to remove these or just index a few of them.

If an "old" page contains valuable content, I actually prefer rewriting it and refresh it. If the content is obsolete or no longer actual, even in that case, instead of 301 redirecting the URL, try an internal link and "cross-sell" with a call to action in your copy and get the traffic that arrives on the page to click onto another somewhat relevant content piece on your site.
Example: we often do this with decommissioned slots reviews. In the past a bunch of flash games got discontinued, we left all the pages up and extended the copy linking to another similarly themed slot game. We informed the visitor that the game is no longer available, and gave them a relevant option to click on to another one.

 

[leah_shepherd]

Example: we often do this with decommissioned slots reviews. In the past a bunch of flash games got discontinued, we left all the pages up and extended the copy linking to another similarly themed slot game. We informed the visitor that the game is no longer available, and gave them a relevant option to click on to another one.

Wow, that's a great idea! I'm sure it will help to improve user's time on page and reduce a bounce rate.