Removing old content
-
Ahoy!
Variously I have heard the opinion that content which does not generate regular search traffic (let's ballpark it at >10 views in any given month) should be noindexed or even removed. Allegedly this would improve the overall quality of the site, rankings and traffic.
I remain doubtful. What would you do if the interest in a given matter goes down over time for any (most) given topics of your content and is replaced by "newer" specific interest?
Concrete example:
I have a website about (book) reviews. Naturally, there will always be new books; old books are not in the media as much and "forgotten". Nevertheless, the reviews (all unique, based on really having read the books, no trace of the standard back cover copy) are obviously still there. Personally I feel that they do not really lose any value - they are still reviews of that one book, even though it is not the most recent one.
So, what would you do: Deindex "older" book reviews after a certain time? Even remove them completely? Just let them run?
I am looking forward to your opinions - and even your experience if you have done something like this!
Nico
-
I have hundreds of books for sale on one of my websites and the product pages for these books get very few visitors per month. However, each month we make about 75 sales from these pages (with some visitors buying several different books). Think of it as 500 pages that each get 5 visitors per month with 3% of the visitors making a purchase. These sales are really easy to service, just open the shopping cart page, print a label, slip a book or two into a mailer, slap on a label. The inventory turns over about once a year and takes up very little space. We are not going to delete those pages.
These are not thin content pages. We have a few hundred words of unique content per page plus standard information that includes, author, publisher, date, ISBN, etc.
-
When it comes to content on your site and Google Panda issues, you need to look at the site as a whole. Generally speaking, we want all of the content to be quality content. If there are book reviews that have plenty of content (as in there is a good amount of text on the page), then even if they are older books you'd want to keep those pages.
When it comes to Google Panda, which you're describing, we're more concerned about "thin content pages", not necessarily content that no one as viewed in a while. When it comes to identifying this content, though, I prefer to look at pages that haven't had any views for 6 months. Even if the page has had less than 10 views in any given month we'd still want to leave content that has had a few views in the past month.
I do believe that there is a use for older book reviews, so if the pages do have enough unique text on the page, then it would be worth it to leave those pages. You might need to look at your overall site structure, though, if you have a lot of pages then they might not be ranking well (or have a lot of page views) because of the site structure--and not necessarily because of the content.
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
-
Updating a Business Blog Article - Old or New Published Date
There are a few business blogs that I'm currently updating - include more details, information, case studies, statistics etc. The blog was originally published in September of 2016. Once I make the changes, do I keep the same original date or do I change the date to the day that i've uploaded the new information? Example:
Content Development | | Kdruckenbrod
Original Published date: September 2016
Updated Blog: June 2017. What date should the blog display? Thank you.0 -
Any recommendations on a Content Marketing Firm?
I have used several and had some good results. Am wondering if I can find one that is more cost effective than who I am using now, as they just doubled their prices.
Content Development | | RoxBrock0 -
Simple Blog Content Question
Which is better? To write my own blog post or, (with permission) use other high DA content on my blog. I'll probably do both, but I'm very curious as to what the search engines prefer or which is better for seo. Thanks in advance!
Content Development | | MissThumann0 -
Same Press Release Content ?
I recently distribute my first ever PR to PRlog site. Now i am planning to move the PR to other PR sites, should i use the same content which i already submitted or again the same thing spun article will do ?
Content Development | | chandubaba0 -
Am I spreading my content & site thin?
I have a video section on my site. Basically I am filtering quality videos for my readers to check out. The videos are pretty much all embedded youtube/vimeo vids. There are a few categories, which are pretty niche-y in relation to my readers. In general they probably aren't seen as too relevant to the overall content on my site... Is it a mistake to keep these videos up? Could they be messing up my rankings since they aren't necessarily in line with the rest of the content on my site?
Content Development | | PedroAndJobu0 -
Google + Content Strategies
Hello, We are currently promoting a website and are considering promoting content via google + We have technical issues that prevent us from promoting content via the company blog. Our question is how beneficial is it to write original articles and post them directly on a company google + page. Is it good to post articles on google + and write original content directly to the google + page? is a technical option to integrate the goole+ content to the website? Do you have any advice as far as the length of original google + articles or any other practical advice? Thanks! Guy
Content Development | | ciznerguy0 -
Duplicate content on the homepage
Hello SEOMOZ Is giving me an error on duplicated content on my site. When viewing the details it is showing the following as duplicated content domain.co.uk/ domain.co.uk domain.co.uk/index.html Obviously these are the same pages. Why is it seeing them as seperate. Does anyone know how I can resolve this issue? Many thanks
Content Development | | lcdesign0 -
Sourcing content and images for Office Interior Design Blog
Im currently building a blog on Wordpress, and I will be blogging about Office Interior Designs. When I look at my competition they have some great blog posts about office interior designs and I have no idea about how they get: a) The ideas to blog about, how do they find out about these office interior designs b) how they get the content for them, how do they know what to write about each one, do they need permission etc, c) if i am interested in doing a blog on the same office interior design as them, how can I get information )and permission from the company that done the office interior design) on the office interior design so i can blog about it and also how do i get the images and stuff. an example is http://www.officedesignblog.com/invensys-rail-office-concept/726/ I would like to cover this aswell, as i think my future readers would like to know about this. how did they get the images, and the information about the project so they could write a blog post about it? And how would I go about doing the same thing?
Content Development | | CompleteOffice1