Can leaving up old web pages no longer accessible through my site navigation hurt my rankings?
-
My firm recently overhauled a client's website. As part of the project, we gave the content a new structure, eliminating certain pages and creating several new ones.
However, I just found out that some of the "old" pages (the ones we supposedly eliminated) still appear in the Google SERPs. Somehow, the client - who handled the coding - let these pages remain live even though they can no longer be accessed through the site navigation.
This seems like something that could hurt the client's SEO rankings, but I want to make sure before contacting the client and suggesting they take down the old pages.
Can anyone confirm my suspicion?
-
Thanks for the quick response.
Would the client risk being penalized by Google by leaving the old pages up?
-
301 redirect the pages to new and relevant content if the pages are receiving traffic.
If they aren't receiving traffic, I'd take them down.
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
-
Can someone evaluate this page so I can continue adding others?
Hi, I am adding a bunch of similar category stickers and I am not looking into that good SEO for these since there will be hundreds of them coming but I just want to include the relevant keywords that people perhaps use in the Google image search to take them to our site. They are all related to JDM (Japanese Domestic Motors) so I decided to include JDM at the end of all the SEO titles. I am writing totally different short descriptions for all of these stickers and the Related Products are changing as well. I just want to achieve something like Amazon or eBay listings do - not the perfect SEO since I cannot spend too much time with each sticker optimizing it but I don't want to NOINDEX, FOLLOW them either - hence the different related products for all items and also unique short descriptions. If you check one of the pages: http://www.redrockdecals.com/rising-sun-wakaba-leaf-sticker-red-black-jdm Do you think I should be in the safe side so I don't hurt my overall SEO? Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | speedbird12290 -
Awful ranking after site redesign
Hello everyone, I have a situation here and I’d like to have your opinion about it. I am working on a site which has been recently redesigned from scratch: in a nutshell, as soon as the new site went live their rankings dropped and, of course, so did their visitors and so on.. The guys who redesigned the site didn’t do any 301 redirect whatsoever, so now the old pages are just 404s and blocked by robots. My question is: if they 301 redirect now, do you think it would be possible they could get their rankings back? One more thing: when they launched the new site, the indexed pages basically doubled overnight; there were 700 and now there are 1400. Do you think this could affect their ranking as well? Thank you for you insights 🙂 Elio
Technical SEO | | Eyah0 -
How GOOGLE can re-index my site as possible as?
I have facing the question about re-indexing in the google search engine, the case is: i have changed my site meta description but google indexed display part description why?? my site is http://www.green-lotus-trekking.com/everest-base-camp-trek/ whats the problem in meta tag description? Please let me know about this?
Technical SEO | | agsln0 -
Can anyone review my site please?
just wandering if anyone can review my site and give me some feedback please much grateful I have just really trying to get clients don't have any yet and any help would be great. reseolve.com
Technical SEO | | ReSEOlve0 -
Rankings for Google Play Pages
Hey all, I'm relatively new here and certainly new to posting in the forums and interacting with the community but I hope to be much more active in the coming months. I have what might be a silly question regarding search results for a Google Play store-specific query. The company in question has their main North American app that's been out for a month and a half and then an International version that was released just a few days ago. If you run a Google search (NOT a search witin Google Play) for 'Google Play Company Name' the more recent (but less used and ultimately less important, at least for the time being) International app is higher in the SERP than the more used and reviewed North American app. I'm guessing that this is something that will correct itself over the next week as the North American app establishes itself as the more important of the two, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask just in case there's something they can do to affect the results a little quicker. Any advice, input or just a verification of my guess would be greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | JDMcNamara0 -
Can anyone tell me why the bot has only picked up one page?
www.namebadgesinternational.co.nz After the 2nd week, I changed the robots.txt file to allow ALL robots on the website, but it still hasn't gone through any pages after another crawl Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Technical SEO | | designsecrets0 -
I am able to point an old domain name to part of my site
hi, i have a domain name to a site that i have but i am thinking of closing that site down and transfer it to a site that is popular. I want to know if i am allowed to point the domain name to a section of my site and if so would it benefit my site or should i just continue running the other site and make it better. would the links to that site be transfered to my site any advice would be great.
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Two different page authority ranks for the same page
I happened to notice that trophycentral.com and www.trophycentral.com have two different page ranks even though there is a 301 redirect. Should I be concerned? http://trophycentral.com Page Authority: 47 Domain Authority: 42 http://www.trophycentral.com Page Authority: 51 Domain Authority: 42 Thanks!
Technical SEO | | trophycentraltrophiesandawards0