Archive older, low ranked content to help new content in Panda 2.2?
-
After watching the white board friday re: Panda 2.2, it got me to thinking about old content.
One of the sites that I work with generates 3-10 new articles/day (movie reviews, interviews, guides, event previews, etc) and has been doing so since 2005. Now, they have almost 10k articles, 7k of which are indexed.
The quality of the content varies, and much of it is dated (movies, events) much of the amount of older content gets 0-5 pageviews/month, made in the days BEFORE the site was using Google News + social tools to spread the word (and backlinks). Note that those older articles also of course tend to have 100% bounce, and small/zero TOS.
Is this hurting the site? With 75-100 articles/month being published, I want to make sure they get maximum exposure. I'm also concerned that crawlers get sucked into the site chasing down old BS content, and that is hurting it as well.
What to do with this content? Should I unpublish unpopular, dated content and get it off the internet? Or, do I leave it on, but NOINDEX it so Google won't crawl it?
-
Thanks for the reply! It's definitely tough to kill content (especially when you paid a writer to do an interesting story or event coverage). So using your suggestion, I looked at a minor section, thats new, but has suffered over the past 30 days.
130 articles
73% bounce
73% exit
1m TOS
26k pageviews
of those, 35 articles have 100% bounce rate, under 10 pageviews, under 1min TOS. I assume applying a simple metric such as this, site wide, and unpublishing articles that fall under this category, would help clear the brush away from the newer content? -
It always hurts to trim existing content, but I think it probably needs to be done.
Google is making a lot of changes to improve the user experience, and if your site is delivering a lot of bounced visitors then google might view it as a poor user experience.
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
-
Community Discussion: Can 10x content be short-form content?
In his (intentionally very short) post on Tuesday, Rand makes the case that long-form content isn't necessarily great content: "Rather than applying a tactic like long-form content universally or setting length as the bar (or even a metric) for greatness, we instead match our content to our audience's needs and our business/personal goals. 700 more words will not help you reach your goals any more than 7 more words. Create content that helps people. Do it efficiently. Never write an ultimate guide where a single image could more powerfully convey the same value. Trust me; your audience and your bottom line will thank you." I think this is something we all struggle with as online marketers, in one way or another. As someone who casually consumes online content on a regular basis, this also resonates with me on a personal level. I'm curious, what are your hesitations with focusing on shorter-form content that packs a wallop, and what excites you about it? Can you think of any examples of content you've come across that you consider 10x short-form content?
Content Development | | Christy-Correll7 -
How best to roll out updated website to new responsive layout
We are having an issue about when to upload newly converted pages to website. By going responsive we are basically going with a new layout, different look entirely. I think it's best to wait until every page in the site has been transferred over to the new layout. Partially because some urls are being updated too, and the look is different enough that it may look like half the site got hi-jacked. My partner thinks rolling out/uploading each page as it is complete is the way to go. Need input on pros and cons of either method.
Content Development | | Manifestation0 -
Is Publishing Content from a Book to your Site Considered Duplicate Content?
It is a book we don't own, either. Would you need to somehow find the original and rel=canonical it? Or is this just all around bad to do? Thanks.
Content Development | | ThridHour0 -
Would my ranking be affected if i had a snipet of an article showing on another site
Hi, i am thinking of using rss feed to show a snippet of an article on two sites for people then to be able to visit the main site, but i want to know if this would damage my seo and rankings. Any help and advice on this would be great
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Content Marketing, Who do I use?
I know nothing about content marketing, so who do I hire? Who are the authorities & leaders in this new era of digital marketing.
Content Development | | KristopherWho0 -
Can forums bring down your search engine rankings?
it might be my imagination, but i could swear that after the launch of a bbpress forum and posts and replies coming from members, the site alexa website rankings actually went DOWN for a while. i always thought forums would de facto bring up rankings - more content, traffic, etc. Is it possible that forum content is considered lower quality? i remember reading that lots of new threads and such from forum members can actually hurt your rankings- is this true? i guess i'm trying to figure out: on balance, what is the impact of forums on rankings - and if there are any negative impacts, if you still want to have one, how to minimize the downside? thanks much for any help!
Content Development | | prospects0 -
Content being copied from our product page hurting our site overall?
On our product pages, he have short descriptions and some bulleted lists. Resellers of our products, and many other sites who are not resellers are copying this content, often verbatim. While I'm not as concerned for the product pages themselves as we're hoping the category pages will rank, does this duplication of our content hurt our site overall? FWIW, our brand name is in our domain and often also shown on these sites that copy the content.
Content Development | | minutiae0 -
My Blog pages are out ranking my main website
My blog was on wordpress.com for over 18mnths and I have just moved it to my domain - rankings are charging as a result - up and down! My current concern is my google.co.uk search position for garden art - my home page http://www.gardenbeet.com has been number 2 for over 12 mnths - now my blog is number 2 http://www.gardenbeet.com/garden_design_blog/garden-art/ this is not the best landing page to generate sales from my shop - any suggestions?
Content Development | | GardenBeet0