What Should I Do With Low Quality Content?
-
As my site has definitely got hit by Panda, I am in the process of cleaning my website of low quality content.
Needless to say, shitty articles are completed being removed but I think lots of this content is now of low quality because it is obsolete and dated.
So what should I do with this content?
Should I rewrite those articles as completely new posts and link from the old posts to the new ones? Or should I delete the old posts and do a 301 redirect to the new post?
Or should I rewrite the content of these articles in place so I can keep the old URL and backlinks?
One thing is that I've got a lot more followers than I used to so publishing a new post gets a lot more views, like and shares and whatnot from social networks.
-
I wouldn't re-write old posts. If they can be refreshed or added to with recent updates go ahead and redirect (if it can be redirected without losing any additional info) or link to the new version.
Things get tricky if there's nothing new that can be written about the post. First, kill the really bad stuff, as Mike suggested, and keep the good stuff. The stuff on the borderline is probably not worth keeping unless it was still receiving traffic. In my experience with Panda, using 410s on bad pages is better than redirecting, but you will probably want to 301 redirect to the next-best page if you have good links.
If it was still receiving organic traffic, think about what you can do to make it better or provide additional resources and reading. Try to save traffic-generating pieces by improving them and making them useful to the people who were landing on them. For high-traffic pieces, you will want to look at the organic keywords and make sure the page somehow answers the query.
As always with Panda, make sure your design doesn't turn people off and that you're not filling the template with too many ads.
-
No 404's are fine they will just not pass link juice and Google will eventually stop following them but ideally they will phase out regardless as the internet moves along.
-
And what about real crappy content? If I delete it, I end up with lots of 404 errors. Does that pose a problem to Google?
-
In this case, would you change the date to post it as "new" content? Because even if I rewrite it, I can't post an article from 2008 to the website's Facebook page.
-
I think that it all depends on how bad the content is. If you have content that is complete and total crap (10+ instances of the same keyword, reads like a toddler wrote it, etc.), it is better just to kill it and redirect your pages elsewhere. On the other hand, if the content is salvageable, then take the time to re-write it and make it good. The benefit of this is that at the end of the day you have good content instead of a bunch of links re-directed to pages that don't necessarily have anything to do with the old content.
Good luck!
P.S. Don't forget the disavow tool if you need it!
-
There is absolutely nothing wrong with multiple 301's pointing to the same page.
-
What if I have two dated articles that I merge into one updated article. Does it matter if I have two 301 redirects to the same URL?
-
with a 301 redirect? that's gonna be a huge htaccess file
-
Kill it and redirect if there are any backlinks incoming. Definitely.
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
-
What to do with repetitive content
Hi, I recently took over a site from another SEO firm. They created lots of articles targeting the same terms. The articles aren't bad but I fear they could dilute the site's ranking power for a given term. I don't want to give away the specific industry, but let's say they have eight pages targeting the term "______ billing software." I'd rather focus their resources on ranking one page for that term. Does that make sense? And if so, how do I do that? The company has a writer that can see if any of the content is good enough to add to their primary ______ billing software page. Would you 301 redirect all these pages to the one you want to rank, or would you canonicalize them? Or am I way off base in my thinking?
On-Page Optimization | | rich.owings0 -
How best to deal with internal duplicate content
hi having an issue with a client site and internal duplicate content. The client has a custom cms and when they post new content it can appear, in full, at two different urls on the site. Short of getting the client to move cms, which they won't do, I am trying to find an easy fix that they could do themselves. ideally they would add a canonical on one of the versions but the cms does allow them to view posts in html view, also would be a lot if messing about wth posting the page and then going back to the cms and adding the tag. the cms is unable to auto generate this either. The content editors are copywriters not programmers. Would there be a solution using wmt for this? They have the skill level to be able to add a url in wmt so im thinking that a stop gap solution could be to noindex one of the versions using the option in webmaster tools. Ongoing we will consult developers about modifying the cms but budgets are limited so looking for a cheap and quick solution to help until the new year. anyone know of a way other than wmt to block Google from seeing duplicate content. We can block Google from folders because only a small percentage of the content in the folder would be internally duplicate. would be very grateful for any suggestions anyone could offer. thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | daedriccarl0 -
Content on ecommerce categories - good or bad?
We have a case with a client where they previously had content on top of their most important ecommerce categories. The content was well integrated and should in my opinion enhance the category experience, but after doing some A/B testing they proved to only decrease the conversion rates when sending traffic directly to those categories. Around that topic I have two questions: Is it a bad thing to put the content BELOW the categories? I need examples of categories where content and products are very well integrated and enhances the category experience - any tips?
On-Page Optimization | | Inevo0 -
Duplicate Content, http vs https
Hi All! I just discovered that a client of ours a duplicate content issue. Essentially they have approximately 20 pages that have an http and an https version. Is there a better way to handle this than a simple 301? Regards, Frank
On-Page Optimization | | FrankSweeney0 -
Duplicate Page Content
Hi there, We keep getting duplicate page content issues. However, its not actually the same page.
On-Page Optimization | | HamiltonIsland
E.G - There might be 5 pages in say a Media Release section of the website. And each URL says page 1, 2 etc etc. However, its still coming up as duplicate. How can this be fixed so Moz knows its actually different content?0 -
Duplicate Content
Is making tabs with general product information on similar products considered duplicate content?
On-Page Optimization | | BridalHotspot0 -
Unoriginal Content Shared By Web Firm with Industry Niche
I have clients who have worked with Web Design companies that focus on a particular niche. As most of you may know, these type of web companies use the same content on all of their clients' sites (examples: Dentists, Law Firms, CPA's). I want to propose to this prospect for us to do a site redesign as part of their SEO contract. The site they use right now is managed by the type of web company that I have described above. But the main question is, if they keep using this site with unoriginal content - will it hurt their rank of have no effect? I plan to add plenty of original content to their site.
On-Page Optimization | | TalkingSheep0 -
Using content for cliche' terms, or content found on other sites
howdy, I have a basic question about using content found on other websites for your own use. I have started a pick up lines website for guys to search for pickup lines to use on girls. Anyways, my website has many, if anything a lot, of the same exact pick up lines as all my competitors are using. If I use the same pick up lines found on their site could i be penalized for this as far as SEO? thanks and hope to hear back
On-Page Optimization | | david3050