topic Re: Delete pages with no value (no links, few views, etc.) or redirect in Content Strategy & SEO

Delete pages with no value(no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

PSM — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 21:49:25 GMT

I have some older pages that have very few views, no links and are no longer relevant. Is there a need to redirect those or could I just unpublish them and tell Google to remove the URL?

Thanks...

Re: Delete pages with no value(no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

shearn — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 09:34:34 GMT

Having those pages live may actually do more damage than good. If they're not regularly updated with fresh relevant content then there's no real point in having them.

If you do have a page that is regularly being updated that is relevant to the older, unused page you can set up 301 redirects which cause no harm. If they're completely irrelevant, then just unpublishing them and removing them from your crawlable sitemap should do the trick.

Re: Delete pages with no value(no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

PSM — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 13:20:00 GMT

Thank you, that helps..

So, is there a need to tell Google to remove the URL? Or, if you unpublish the page will it just drop the URL?

Thanks again..

Re: Delete pages with no value(no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

MFrankJohnson — Sat, 17 Aug 2019 10:22:48 GMT

Q: So, is there a need to tell Google to remove the URL? Or, if you unpublish the page will it just drop the URL?

Short A: You should update your sitemap in Google Search Console, so Google get's notified immediately (instead of waiting for the next crawl).

Longer A: No long answer.

Hope that helps @PSM

Re: Delete pages with no value(no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

JohnNiggl — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 10:46:13 GMT

@shearn

Relevant to this topic, my blog has curated posts published weekly and covering industry news--i.e. NOT evergreen content, but content with a very short half life (~1-2 weeks).

Should I be deleting these regularly, since they rarely get visits or new backlinks more than a few weeks after publishing? If so, how regularly?

Re: Delete pages with no value(no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

cmilerick — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 13:09:07 GMT

@MFrankJohnson relative to this conversation, I have been asked to completely wipe out a URL, so that it cannot be typed into a browser, prefilled, linked to our page, etc. I deleted the blog but it still leads to a "blank" page on our site.

Would your technique of "Short A: You should update your sitemap in Google Search Console, so Google get's notified immediately (instead of waiting for the next crawl)."

Make it so that when a url gets typed into a browser, it does not bring up a our site?

Re: Delete pages with no value (no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

MFrankJohnson — Sat, 17 Aug 2019 10:23:20 GMT

Q: [How to] Make it so that when a url gets typed into a browser, it does not bring up our site?

Short A: n/a

Longer A:

There are a variety of things you'll need to do. Some will depend on WHY you don't want a specific URL to land on your website any longer.

-1- Set the target URL (page or post) to 'noindex nofollow' (important)

-2- Remove the target URL from your sitemap (and resubmit)

-3- Redirect the target URL to whereverthehell [good word] - this is where it gets tricky.

Reason NOT To Redirect - Google may also rank pages based on the behavior of other pages on your website. So pages that result in poor UX (user experience) may drag down other 'good' pages.

We've had success redirecting to 'fake 404 pages' -- an actual good URL on our domain that presents generic info -- e.g., 'We've Moved To HubSpot' or 'Service Discontinued'-- and with a button back to our homepage. This gives the visitor the option to click and therefore move forward in the visitor flow being tracked by Google. (recommended only for very specific use cases)

Reason TO Redirect - you just need to do it. If that's the case, redirect somewhere that doesn't hurt the UX or your brand -- e.g., maybe to a topically relevant affiliate product page. (just a thought)

Re: Delete pages with no value (no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

cmilerick — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:22:40 GMT

I deleted the blog, so I can't find it to edit it per your instructions per #1, which is what I think I need to do.

It's not on my sitemap so I can't do #2

If someone clicks on the link (that had existed in the past) and must be on some collateral somewhere..., it lands on our site specifically what is needed is to:

Could you completely wipe out this URL so that when it gets typed into a browser it doesn’t bring up a page on our site?

Re: Delete pages with no value (no links, few views, etc.) or redirect

MFrankJohnson — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 18:04:32 GMT

Sorry @cmilerick, if you need further explanation, you'll want to ask your question as a separate post.

#nlmtt