Removing large section of content with traffic, what is best de-indexing option?

[nicole.healthline]

If we are removing 100 old urls (archives of authors that no longer write for us), what is the best option?

1. we could 301 traffic to the main directory

2. de-index using no-index, follow

3. 404 the pages

Thanks!

[EGOL]

We have a busy blog with lots of very temporary content.  About once a year we delete a couple thousand posts.  However, before we do that we look at analytics to see which pages are pulling traffic from search.

For pages that receive regular traffic, we first try to recycle the post.  If that is not possible we create a page with evergreen content so that a 301 redirect can be done.  All other pages are 301 redirected to the homepage of the blog.

[RyanKent]

The best option would be to take the pages on a case-by-base basis.

Each page should ideally cover a specific focus. For example if an article discusses "the grapefruit diet" you can redirect the URL to another page on your site that discusses dieting. If you understand what users want from the page and have similar content, help your users make the connection they seek rather then 404'ing the page or dumping them on your home page.

If you do not have any similar content, check the page's backlinks. If there are none then I would let the page 404. This would be a good time to ensure your site's 404 page is helpful. A navigation bar and search option would be good to show on the page.

If the page has valuable backlinks and there is no related content on your site, perhaps the page still has value even though the author is gone. If you still wish to remove the page you should redirect the traffic to your home page or main directory as you suggested.