When auditing a website, when do you decide to delete pages?
-
Given that the Panda algorithm includes engagement and user experience, when would you consider deleting a page that has poor engagement and conversion metrics?
For example, consider a page that ranks well organically and receives (relatively) decent traffic from search. However, this page has poor engagement metrics compared to other pages on the site, does not convert visitors as well as other pages on the site, and doesn't have any external links. Would you consider deleting this page?
Which metrics do you use when auditing a site and considering a web page from removal (bounce rate, average time on site, pages per visit, linking root domains, visits, revenue per visit, etc.)?
Are some metrics weighed more than others? What kind of thresholds do you use?
Finally, is there a situation when you would choose NOT to delete pages, even considering the above?
-
For example, consider a page that ranks well organically and receives (relatively) decent traffic from search. However, this page has poor engagement metrics compared to other pages on the site, does not convert visitors as well as other pages on the site, and doesn't have any external links. Would you consider deleting this page?
I would improve the page.
Beef up the content, add seductive links to get traffic to a more valuable page, add adsense to earn money if the traffic is low quality.
Which metrics do you use when auditing a site and considering a web page from removal (bounce rate, average time on site, pages per visit, linking root domains, visits, revenue per visit, etc.)?
If someone brought me a site that needed help I would do keyword research to determine if they are covering the important queries for their line of business. If they are not I would have a content plan to get them covered. If they are covered but performing poorly we would improve those pages.
Looking at the numbers you suggest is like cutting off a foot because you have a blister on your toe. Decide instead if the foot is valuable. If yes, cure it.
-
Hard to beat what Dan has said here.
The only think I could possibly add is to monitor whether google has added those pages to the index, and/or removed them. I find it telling to see what google acknowledges by way of their own search results.
-
Hi There
First off, I rarely delete pages. Better and easier to noindex. That way you get them out of the SERPs and reduce the poor user metrics, but people can still find the pages otherwise and you don't have to 301 redirect them etc. You can delete if you feel they are just a bad user experience over all of course - but I noindex as a starting point.
Anyhow, regardless, here's how I access it - first I use a custom report with the following metrics (you can play around with them);
- pageviews
- entrances
- new visits
- avg time on page
- exits
- exit rate
- "page" for the dimension
Thresholds - starting point (I use filters)
- pageviews - I start with over 50
- avg time on page - less than 30 seconds
- exit rate - great than 80%
I like to end up with a list of maybe 50-100 pages that fall within the thresholds. Every site is different. But I try to isolate 50-100 of the worst pages (we're assuming maybe a 2,500+ page site).
You can throw a segment on there if you want to segment just Google Organic traffic - that could in some cases be more accurate.
Hope that helps! Interested to see what other people do.
-Dan
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
-
Google not giving ranking to the intended page of my website.
Hello friends, This is my very first question, I hope I will explain my issue correctly. I have created two pages related to SSC CGL keyword on my website: https://www.ibtindia.com/ssc-cgl-notification-exam-date 2) https://www.ibtindia.com/ssc-cgl-apply-online I want to target the keyword SSC CGL Apply Online on the 2nd URL but Google is only considering the 1st page for all the "apply" related keywords as well. Can anyone suggest to me how to get the second page in rankings for its intended keywords? I will be very thankful for this help. I tried adding image but its showing dummy. Please you can check it op GOOGLE SERP Second page
Search Behavior | | namitathakur0 -
List all keywords from a website per page in a table??
Hi all, Very basic question I know but strangely cannot find a solution to it? (its 20:40 on a Fri-night! 😉 ) I am working on a website that has over 100 pages and would like to see all the keywords associated with each page maybe in a table report of some kind? Is this at all possible? Heres an example URL KEYWORDS /index.html Moz, Moz local, London /aboutmoz.html Moz. Moz SEO, London and so on....
Search Behavior | | darrenbooy0 -
How to capture leads from website?
Hi, We have a contact and a registration form on our website to capture leads/enquiries. However, I have come across many websites who give away many resources for free i.e. without asking for any user details. In this case, how do they track or capture the data of people coming to their website and interacting with the content? There are other methods we well like CTAs, pop-up on exit intent etc., but these are different to what I have asked above. Regards
Search Behavior | | IM_Learner0 -
My satellite website is ranking better than my actual site. Why and what to do?
This is our website: www.sauspiel.de and this is the satellite website. As the satellite site has a better ranking for the keyword "schafkopf" since two or three weeks we wonder how this could happen and what would be best to change it or improve the situation. Shall we take down the satellite site, redirect to the "real" site or try to downgrade? And what would you consider to be the (strongest) reason? Any suggestions? Thanks a lot for your help and assessment!
Search Behavior | | sauspiel0 -
Looking for something better than Googles in page analytics
Buongiorno from 12 degrees C wetherby UK 🙂 I'm interested in measuring content engagagement, things like what gets clicked on mouse tracking beahaviour etc. Google Analytics in page analytics does a good job but is there another product able to guage user interactive behaviour with content (Yes ive added event tracking). Thanks in advance,
Search Behavior | | Nightwing
David1 -
Forced Page Views and Search Engines?
I have a website that was built for the primary purpose of showing HTML 5 capabilities. With this, we have to create forced page views within analytics in order to receive any data about consumer behavior on the site. Are search engines viewing these forced page views as actual webpages? Does it even effect SEO efforts?
Search Behavior | | HughesDigital0 -
Would you say it is more bennificial to seperate keywords in the title tag tag of a page using a common ( keyword , keyword | Domain.com) or using a hyphen as SEOmoz best practices reccommends (keyword - keyword | domain.com)?
Title tag best practices according to seomoz is the following keyowrd - keyword | brand.com but I have seen some interesting results from using a comma as to a hyphen to seperate keywords as reccomended and wanted to know which method is more crawler friendly.
Search Behavior | | JHSpecialty0 -
+1 articles and opposed to a website
What is the difference if a friend on Google +, +1's your blog entry as opposed to your blog (as a whole)? Will it be displayed differently to their network or better yet, have a difference in their search engine results the next time they search for a relatable keyword?
Search Behavior | | StreetwiseReports0