Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is it okay to delete old blog posts?
-
Hi All,
I'm doing some SEO work on an entertainment (movies/tv/gaming) blog that started in 2011. Their recent articles have gained some popularity due to improved content and marketing, but there is some old stuff from the early days that was poorly written and gets virtually no traffic. These are mostly old news pieces.
Out of approximately 10,000 articles, about 1,000 are receiving the lions share of the traffic. I feel like their good content is getting bogged down in a sea of crap. Would there be any harm in deleting some of those old posts? Is there a best practice for culling content?
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the link. Interesting. Looks like deleting posts could have many unintended consequences. I think I'll hold off for a bit.
-
Thank you for outlining a clear process for me. I will proceed with extreme caution if and when I decide to delete:)
-
Check the ones you want to delete to see if there are any backlinks to any of them. If there are, don't delete them yet.
For those with no external links, first check the traffic for the last year. None? Then make sure there are no references (links) to them on your site. Once there are no links to the post, then delete.
If there are external links to the post, either update it and republish (301 redirect to the new URL from the old one), just keep it, or contact the site linking and ask them to change the link to an updated post. Don't waste that link equity!
Hope that helps!
-
Could you try disabling the posts instead of deleting them entirely? If things take a turn for the worse you could always enable them again and look into improving the posts instead.
-
Hi
I would recommend reading this before you do anything: http://www.koozai.com/blog/search-marketing/deleted-900-blog-posts-happened-next/
I want to do the same - but its a risk to search visibility.
-
There probably isn't much harm in deleting them, but I'd also see if there's any way to repurpose some of the pieces or maybe some of the topics are still relevant & can be rewritten/updated to not be "crap." Even if you don't do any updating to those old posts, I would consider archiving the pages (making sure you don't create any duplicate content!) rather than deleting them as they're likely influencing how Google understands the overall context of your site. I would review the content relevancy report in Webmaster Tools to see how Google understands your site... Click on any of the listed terms to see if those old posts are where your top KWs are occurring - should help you decide on keeping or nixing some pages.
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
When to re-write and redirect a blog url?
What are best practices for rewriting (and then redirecting) blog URLs? I refresh old blog posts on our blog every month and many of them have URLs that are too long or could be improved. However, many of them also already get decent organic traffic and I don't want to lose traffic due to a URL redirect. Are there any best practices or "rules" I can follow when deciding whether to re-write and redirect blog URLs?
Content Development | | Emily.R.Monrovia
Thanks!0 -
Write post in Moz. How can we apply to send a post, is this posible?
Hi, is posible to colaborate in MOZ post, i´m spanish i so probably i had to check muy post lots lots of times, but is it posible? Thanks
Content Development | | Agenciaseomadrid1 -
References for Healthcare Blog Content?
Hey everyone, We have a couple B2C medical/healthcare clients we produce content for and I was wondering what the industry stance is when it comes to giving references at the end of a blog, assuming there were no statistics or direct quotes used in the content. A lot of our content is written via research on a specific condition/treatment and doesn't really dive deep into specific medical nuances. Things like risks, recovery timelines, questions to ask, etc. are written about mostly. Still, should we be providing general references at the end of blogs to sites like WebMD, Medscape, etc. Thanks for any input!
Content Development | | danielreyes0 -
Shopify Blog vs Wordpress
We are moving our Ecommerce site to Shopify. Currently we run our blog on Wordpress and I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion on using the Shopify blog vs Wordpress?
Content Development | | Glaze0 -
At what point to stop comments on a blog? Do too many comments hurt the page?
I have a page that's ranking pretty well, and driving sales. That page is starting to get 10+ comments per day and is starting to get quite long. I was wondering if there is a point where I should disable the comments? My gut tells me that people interacting with the page, and Google seeing responses with the users SHOULD be a good thing not bad. But, then I think that a majority of the content of the page is no longer the article, but the comments. All the comments are good, non spammy and directly related to the topic. People just asking questions, etc. Good engagement, I should be happy right?
Content Development | | DemiGR0 -
Locating Guest Blogging Niches
Hey Folks, Does anybody have advice on tools I could use to locate blogs on specific topics? My plan is to approach the webmasters and offer guest blogging services. I know I could just do a google search for something like "KEYWORD blogs" but I thought I'd see if there is anything more sophisticated out there. Thanks, Rich
Content Development | | Rich-O0 -
Blog for SEO: embedded in the site or separate
Hello, For both ecommerce and sites that sell services, I've seen a lot of people recommending a blog for SEO. Should this blog be inside or separate from the main website for the most results? I can see how adding one to a site would create more unique content and an opportunity for link bait, but perhaps there is a reason to have a blog separate from the main site Thank you.
Content Development | | BobGW1 -
How do blogs affect seo?
Could you help me understand how blogs affect seo and how this works specifically when a blog is located within a site? Thank you!
Content Development | | derrickkuhn0