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.
Best way to handle outdated & years old Blog-posts?
-
Hi all,
We have almost 1000 pages or posts from our blog which are indexed in Google. Few of them are years old, but they have some relevant and credible content which appears in search results. I am just worried about other hundreds of non-relevant posts which are years old. Being hosting hundreds of them, our website is holding lots of these useless indexing pages which might be giving us little negative impact of keeping non-ranking pages. What's the best way to handle them? Are these pages Okay? Or must be non-indexed or deleted?
Thanks
-
I can tell you what we do. With over 35 000 posts we are always tweaking the better ones and dropping the dead weight. I'm currently going through a bunch of posts from 2010. I run two quick tests on them - I check the PA [page authority] on Moz. If it's 1 then that's one strike, anything higher I consider working on the post. Next is a quick check in Google Analytics for traffic over the past 6 months. As you can imagine many posts from 7 years ago have 0 traffic. This is strike 2 and in my ballpark, 2 strikes means 'you're out!'. I delete the posts, a hard 404. As we cut the driftwood from our nets I feel we will be more efficient at catching more fish.
-
I have a couple of suggestions for this.
1. You can 301 redirect the pages/posts that are low-quality to higher quality/more relevant pages, or you could even decide to rewrite the topics to update them in a new post to improve the content and then 301 the old posts to the updated content. If you decide to 301, you should make sure to use a rel=canonical tag so Google knows what pages are the right ones to index.
2. You can also recycle your high performing content into new posts. For example, if you had a post that was 10 Best _____ for 2010, you could rewrite the same post now, updating any neccessary info, and name it 10 Best _____ for 2017.
Hope that helps some. Let me know if you have any other questions.
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
-
Is it necessary to have unique H1's for pages in a pagination series (i.e. blog)?
A content issue that we're experiencing includes duplicate H1 issues within pages in a pagination series (i.e. blog). Does each separate page within the pagination need a unique H1 tag, or, since each page has unique content (different blog snippets on each page), is it safe to disregard this? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BopDesign0 -
Are Meta-descriptions important for blogs?
I am tasked with optimizing an existing sites SEO. I have added meta's to all the menu pages, however they have blog section with over 700 posts. How important are meta descriptions when it comes to a websites blog? Do I need to take the time to go through 700+ blog posts and create unique meta descriptions for each one?
Algorithm Updates | | rburnett0 -
How long for google to de-index old pages on my site?
I launched my redesigned website 4 days ago. I submitted a new site map, as well as submitted it to index in search console (google webmasters). I see that when I google my site, My new open graph settings are coming up correct. Still, a lot of my old site pages are definitely still indexed within google. How long will it take for google to drop off or "de-index" my old pages? Due to the way I restructured my website, a lot of the items are no longer available on my site. This is on purpose. I'm a graphic designer, and with the new change, I removed many old portfolio items, as well as any references to web design since I will no longer offering that service. My site is the following:
Algorithm Updates | | rubennunez
http://studio35design.com0 -
Google & Tabbed Content
Hi I wondered if anyone had a case study or more info on how Google treats content under tabs? We have an ecommerce site & I know it is common to put product content under tabs, but will Google ignore this? Becky
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey1 -
Old school SEO tools / software / websites
Hey Mozzers, I am doing some research and wonder if you can help me out? Before Moz, Hubspot, Majestic, Screaming Frog and all the other awesome SEO tools we use today what were the SEO tools / software / websites that were used for aiding SEO? I guess we can add the recently closed Yahoo! Directory for starters! Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | RikkiD220 -
Republish An Updated Blog or not?
We need to update one of our older posts (a new federal ruling came down that now applies) but do I just update it or should I republish it? I know that just republishing something that hasn't been changed, can get you flagged, but if it's an update, I would think that would be appropriate to republish. I'd just like some guidance before I proceed. Thanks and Happy Friday! Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
With regards to SEO is it good or bad to remove all the old events from our website?
Our website sells tickets for various events across the UK, we do have a LOT of old event pages on our website which simply say SOLD OUT. What is the best practice? Should these event pages be removed and a 301 redirect added to redirect to the home page? Or should these pages remain in tact with simply SOLD OUT on the page?
Algorithm Updates | | Alexogilvie0 -
301-Redirects, PageRank, Matt Cutts, Eric Enge & Barry Schwartz - Fact or Myth?
I've been trying to wrap my head around this for the last hour or so and thought it might make a good discussion. There's been a ton about this in the Q & A here, Eric Enge's interview with Matt Cutts from 2010 (http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml) said one thing and Barry Schwartz seemed to say another: http://searchengineland.com/google-pagerank-dilution-through-a-301-redirect-is-a-myth-149656 Is this all just semantics? Are all of these people really saying the same thing and have they been saying the same thing ever since 2010? Cyrus Shepherd shed a little light on things in this post when he said that it seemed people were confusing links and 301-redirects and viewing them as being the same things, when they really aren't. He wrote "here's a huge difference between redirecting a page and linking to a page." I think he is the only writer who is getting down to the heart of the matter. But I'm still in a fog. In this video from April, 2011, Matt Cutts states very clearly that "There is a little bit of pagerank that doesn't pass through a 301-redirect." continuing on to say that if this wasn't the case, then there would be a temptation to 301-redirect from one page to another instead of just linking. VIDEO - http://youtu.be/zW5UL3lzBOA So it seems to me, it is not a myth that 301-redirects result in loss of pagerank. In this video from February 2013, Matt Cutts states that "The amount of pagerank that dissipates through a 301 is currently identical to the amount of pagerank that dissipates through a link." VIDEO - http://youtu.be/Filv4pP-1nw Again, Matt Cutts is clearly stating that yes, a 301-redirect dissipates pagerank. Now for the "myth" part. Apparently the "myth" was about how much pagerank dissipates via a 301-redirect versus a link. Here's where my head starts to hurt: Does this mean that when Page A links to Page B it looks like this: A -----> ( reduces pagerank by about 15%)-------> B (inherits about 85% of Page A's pagerank if no other links are on the page But say the "link" that exists on Page A is no longer good, but it's still the original URL, which, when clicked, now redirects to Page B via a URL rewrite (301 redirect)....based on what Matt Cutts said, does the pagerank scenario now look like this: A (with an old URL to Page B) ----- ( reduces pagerank by about 15%) -------> URL rewrite (301 redirect) - Reduces pagerank by another 15% --------> B (inherits about 72% of Page A's pagerank if no other links are on the page) Forgive me, I'm not a mathematician, so not sure if that 72% is right? It seems to me, from what Matt is saying, the only way to avoid this scenario would be to make sure that Page A was updated with the new URL, thereby avoiding the 301 rewrite? I recently had to re-write 18 product page URLs on a site and do 301 redirects. This was brought about by our hosting company initiating rules in the back end that broke all of our custom URLs. The redirects were to exactly the same product pages (so, highly relevant). PageRank tanked on all 18 of them, hard. Perhaps this is why I am diving into this question more deeply. I am really interested to hear your point of view
Algorithm Updates | | danatanseo0