Best practices for retiring 100s of blog posts?
-
Hi. I wanted to get best practices for retiring an enterprise blog with hundreds of old posts with subject matter that won't be repurposed. What would be the best course of action to retire and maintain the value of any SEO authority from those old blog pages?
Is it enough to move those old posts into an archive subdirectory and Google would deprioritize those posts over time?
Or would a mass redirect of old blog posts to the new blog's home page be allowed (even though the old blog post content isn't being specifically replaced)? Or would Google basically say that if there aren't 1:1 replacement URLs, that would be seen as soft-404s and treated like a 404?
-
Retiring a large number of blog posts can be a significant task, and it's important to handle it thoughtfully to maintain the integrity of your website and its content. Here are some best practices for retiring hundreds of blog posts:
1. Assessment and Planning:
- Evaluate each blog post individually to determine its relevance, traffic, and importance.
2. Communication:** - Inform your audience about the changes in advance. Create a blog post or announcement explaining the decision to retire certain content.
3.Maintain SEO: - Update your sitemap to reflect the changes.
4.Content Audit:
Use the retirement as an opportunity to conduct a broader content audit. Assess the overall quality and relevance of your remaining content.
5. Learn from Analytics: - Analyze website analytics to understand the impact of retiring specific posts on traffic and user engagement.
- Evaluate each blog post individually to determine its relevance, traffic, and importance.
-
Best Practices for Retiring Hundreds of Blogs
Are you contemplating retiring hundreds of old blog posts? It's a significant decision, but fear not! Here are the best practices for a smooth transition.
Content Audit: Analyze traffic, engagement, and relevance to identify which posts to retire. Preserve high-performing and evergreen content for repurposing.
301 Redirects: Redirect retired blog URLs to related or updated content using 301 redirects. This preserves SEO value and prevents broken links.
Inform Your Audience: Notify your readers in advance about the changes. Explain why certain posts are being retired and assure them of fresh, valuable content to come.
Archiving: Consider archiving the retired posts on your website for reference purposes. This maintains historical context and might still attract occasional visits.
Promotion of New Content: Emphasize your latest and most relevant content. Utilize newsletters, social media, and email campaigns to highlight new posts and offerings.
Monitor Analytics: Keep a close eye on post-retirement metrics to gauge the impact on traffic and user behavior. Adjust your strategy as needed.
Remember, retiring old blogs opens up opportunities for fresh, engaging content that resonates with your audience. Embrace the change and watch your website flourish!
P.S. Explore Hamzastore.pk for unique and trendy 3D wall clocks Add a touch of style to your space with our premium collection.
-
Redirecting them in bulk might cause some loss of equity yes - are any of them particularly noteworthy or well linked to? Perhaps just those ones could be left up.
That said, if you have the option to leave these posts live on an archived subdirectory, why is it that you want to take them down at all? Usually the answer would be because they are duplicate or thin content, but clearly that is not the case.
-
@David_Fisher When retiring an old enterprise blog with many outdated posts, simply archiving them in a subdirectory may not be enough to prevent Google from indexing them. Redirecting all the old posts to the new blog's homepage without any relevant content could be seen as a soft-404 by Google.
The best approach would be to repurpose or update any relevant posts for the new blog and redirect only those specific posts. For the rest, create a custom 404 page that provides links to the new blog's homepage and other relevant content. This approach ensures a positive user experience and maintains SEO authority.
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
-
Old Blogs
We have several blogs on our site for a range of products we no longer stock. Would you set up a redirect for these - and how long would you keep it in place?
Technical SEO | | Caroline_Ardmoor0 -
Are there ways to avoid false positive "soft 404s" by Google
Sometimes I get alerts from Google Search Console that it has detected soft 404s on different websites, and since I take great care to never have true soft 404s, they are always false positives. Today I got one on a website that has pages promoting some events. The language on the page for one event that has sold out says that "tickets are no longer available" which seems to have tripped up Google into thinking the page is a soft 404. It's kind of incredible to me that in the current era we're in, with things like chatGPT that Google doesn't seem to understand natural language. But that has me thinking, are there some strategies or best practices we can use in how we write copy on the page so Google doesn't flag it as soft 404? It seems like anything that could tell a user that an item isn't available could trip it up into thinking it is a 404. In the case of my page, it's actually important information we need to tell the public that an event has sold out, but to use their interest in that event to promote other events. so I don't want the page deindexed or not to rank well!
Technical SEO | | IrvCo_Interactive0 -
Should I keep my existing site or start new?
I have a website with less than 3K visits a year. Only customers with an Account with me who have login credentials can see my product pricing and make a purchase onsite; therefore, indexing/page ranking is not a concern for me. My agency suggests that my product catalog be corrected to a parent/child relationship. Currently, each product variation has its own SKU and PDP. As a result, product findability: Site Search, Categorization, and Facets are a mess. Is there any way I can keep my current URL (branding purposes)? I thought we could delete all pages (PLPs & PDPs) and create all new and enforce 301 redirects. Thoughts?
Community | | SEOfreshman0 -
404s on subfolder - how to redirect?
Hi all,
Technical SEO | | MFSMarketing
we have a lot of 404s to subfolders. Eg
www.website.com/blog-post-title/imagename/
www.website.com/blog-post-title/author/ We don't have these subfolders or blog posts anymore.
How do i redirect them? These links (404s) don't seem to have any value or backlinks. Thanks,
Stef0 -
Should I build a blog on is.edu ?
is.edu is offering free subdomains recently, I want to know does it worth the effort to build a few PBN on their free subdomains?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Mar284920 -
Guest post linking only to good content
Hello, We're thinking of doing guest posting of the following type: 1. The only link is in the body of the guest post pointing to our most valuable article. 2. It is not a guest posting site - we approached them to help with content, they don't advertise guest posting. They sometimes use guest posting if it's good content. 3. It is a clean site - clean design, clean anchor text profile, etc. We have 70 linking root domains. We want to use the above tactics to add 30 more links. Is this going to help us on into the future of Google (We're only interested in long term)? Is 30 too many? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Is guest posting good for main link-building tactic for eCommerce site
Hello, Is guest posting going to be devalued? We've been offering a guest post with one link in the body pointing towards one of our articles, and one home page link in the bio. We're looking at doing this as the main link building strategy. Is this still a good idea now and in the future? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Blogging on Drupal Blogs. White Hat or ?
Recently, we noticed a website in our site rise higher in SERP shortly after launching. The key strategy they are using is to Blog on High PR Drupal Blogs, which allow you to create profile and write articles. What does the community here think of such tactic. Is it a grey area, or considered a White Hat technique?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | potterharry0