Decreasing the size of a site to increase SEO value of remaining pages?

[CouponCactus]

My website has thousands of pages and I have so many keywords on the bottom of page 1 and on page 2 of SERPs. I am considering making the site smaller to lessen the dilution of the overall domain authority and in theory the remainder pages should get pushed up in rank. Do you feel this theory is flawed? Is it better to 301 or remove the pages if they don't have backlinks directly to the internal page? These are pages I would re-enable down the road once overall domain authority is increased.

thanks,

David

couponcactus.com

[AlanMosley]

No i would not remove pages,

How pagerank works is in simple terms, image that every page is awarded 1 point, you have 3 pages your site has 3 points, you add 3 more pages , your site has 6 points, but divided by 6 pages, back to where you started. but by internal linking you can pust that 6 points onto one page, you may end up with 1 page with 3 points and 5 pages with 0.5.

What i would do, is chose a page you want to rank for a subject, term, keyword. then all other pages that have relevance i would link to this page.

I once again suggest reading this page

http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html

[RyanKent]

If your site covers a specific topic, then by removing off-topic discussions you can keep your site more relevant to your primary focus which can benefit your search results.

In your case, I believe your approach is not in the best interests of your site. I drew that conclusion based on your last statement "These are pages I would re-enable down the road once overall domain authority is increased."

Based on the little information shared, I am guessing the site you are referring to is http://www.couponcactus.com/. I only took a brief look at your site but the pages all seem to be coupons which are relevant to your site.

You could remove coupons which are no longer valid. Doing such will help users and search engines. It will avoid users coming to your site seeking a deal only to be frustrated to find the offer is not valid and then bouncing off your site. Your metrics such as bounce rate can improve as well which can benefit your ranking.

There are many opportunities for you to improve your DA which provide long term value rather then attempting this temporary change which is unlikely to yield any noticeable benefit. If I was responsible for your site, a few changes to consider would be:

• add Google+ to your site

• add the ability to use social logins to sign in to your site

• add more categories. I recently was looking for a Verisign SSL certificate for a client. I located a 25% off coupon on a site similar to yours. I don't see any category such a coupon would fit into. Perhaps I missed it.

• continue to expand your coupon selection. What offers do competitors have that your site does not?

• check out every competitors site and upgrade yours until you are confident CouponCactus is the best coupon site on the planet.

• once the above is done, let the world know about your site. Any time a forum thread or blog article talks about a product or service which you offer a coupon for, make a helpful reply letting interested people know "hey, if you do like Kim Kardashian items you can get 20% off with the coupon at couponcactus.com."