Removing hundreds of old product pages - Best process
-
Hi guys,
I've got a site about discounts/specials etc. A few months ago we decided it might be useful to have shop specials in PDF documents "pulled" and put on the site individually so that people could find the specials easily. This resulted in over 2000 new pages being added to the site over a few weeks (there are lots of specials).
However, 2 things have happened:1 - we have decided to go in another direction with the site and are no longer doing this
2 - the specials that were uploaded have now ended but the pages are still liveGoogle has indexed these pages already. What would be the best way to "deal" with these pages? Do I just delete them, do I 301 them to the home page? PS the site is build on wordpress.
Any ideas as I am at a complete loss.
Thanks,
Marc -
I am not aware of any benefit to removing the pages slowly over time as opposed to all at once.
-
Hi Ryan,
Thanks, I'll go through now and start deleting them.
Will not deleting almost 2000 pages from the site, make Google a little nervous about the "structure" or "trustworthiness" of my site?
Should I do it a few each week, or just all at once? -
In that case the general advise would be to delete the pages and allow them to 404.
The wordpress information is offered in case you happen to have a WP site. If your site is not built in WP, then a similar process would ideally be used.
-
Hi Ryan,
Thanks.
Yes there would be no other pages that would help the user.
So do I just go through wordpress and mass delete all of those posts? -
When deleting a web page ask yourself the following question:
If I was a user who was looking for this web page and it was not available, is there another page on my site which is very closely related which is likely to satisfy the user's query?
For example, if you have a page on May 2012 Deals of the Month, then I would forward that page to the current "Deals of the Month" page.
If you do not have a closely related page, then I would suggest allowing the URL to go to your 404 page. You should have a solid 404 process in place. Specifically:
-
your 404 page should be helpful. It should contain your site's navigation, a search option, a basic "I am sorry the page you are looking for cannot be found" message, etc.
-
you should track 404 errors so you can understand the popularity of any URLs which generate a 404. If you see a single URL generating multiple 404 errors on a daily basis, then you can take that as a strong indicator of a need to create new content related to that subject.
I recommend Yoast Google Analytics for WP plugin: http://yoast.com/wordpress/google-analytics/. It helps track and resolve 404 errors on WP sites.
-
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
-
Why Would My Page Have a Higher PA and DA, Links & On-Page Grade & Still Not Rank?
The Search Term is "Alcohol Ink" and our client has a better page authority, domain authority, links to the page, and on-page grade than those in the SERP for spaces 5-10 and we're not even ranked in the top 51+ according to Moz's tracker. The only difference I can see is that our URL doesn't use the exact text like some of the 5-10 do. However, regardless of this, our on-page grade is significantly higher than the rest of them. The one thing I found was that there were two links to the page (that we never asked for) that had a spam score in the low 20's and another in the low 30's. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to maybe get around this? Certainly, a content campaign and linking campaign around this could also help but I'm kind of scratching my head. The client is reputable, with a solid domain age and well recognized in the space so it's not like it's a noob trying to get in out of nowhere.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Omnisye0 -
Please share best high quality low cost animation and video production services for less
Hi, Here's what I'm doing: I've got Creative Suite and I'm putting together animations and videos for several websites, finding clips and images and forming what we need. What I need: A video production service to put everything together with their fine 10X or near "touch" without charging me too much since I did all the legwork. I'm asking for a miracle here, I'm asking for almost 10X animation, but where I do the legwork and it doesn't cost very much. Real low budget here, but we're not willing to put out anything low par. Please share any services or advice you know of. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Major Landing page removed from Google SERP and replace homepage URL.How do I fix it?
Hi Major Landing page removed from Google SERP and replace homepage URL.How do I fix it? In an SPA website (angularJS), Why it happens?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cafegardesh0 -
SEO implication of adding large number of new product pages
If I have an eCommerce website containing 10,000 product pages and then I add 10,000 new product pages using a bulk upload (with limited/basic but unique content), does this pose any SEO risk? I am obviously aware of the risks of adding a large number of low quality content to the website, which is not the case here, however what I am trying to ascertain is whether simply doubling the number of pages in itself causes any risk to our SEO efforts? Does it flag to the Search Engines that something "spammy" is happening (even if its not)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
How Should We Best List Events Pages?
Hi everyone! Luke here from CHARGED.fm hoping that a brilliant mind could help me with another annoying (at least for me) technical seo question. It's about how we list the events on our ticketing site. Here's the rundown: We currently list tickets by event id, but our competitors keep the event page in the same silo and use the venue name and date of event in the url. So we do this: http://www.charged.fm/kinky-boots-tickets (disregard redirect for now) List the events where you can choose from these: http://www.charged.fm/event/tickets/2518362/kinky-boots
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | keL.A.xT.o
http://www.charged.fm/event/tickets/2511448/kinky-boots Moz lists these as duplicate content, so we're wondering how to resolve this. We're also wondering if it would be benficial to keep the events page in the same silo like our competitors: http://www.vividseats.com/theatre/kinky-boots-tickets/kinky-boots-9-20-1537274.html (notice how they go /theatre/kinky-boots-tickets/event/) Would it be beneficial to list like this? Is it inconsequential? Could we leave things the way that they are or should we at least add the venue and date to the events page URL? Thanks a lot for any help,
Luke0 -
Does a page on a site with high domain authority build page authority easier? i.e. less inbound links?
Is this also why people build backlinks to their BBB profiles, Yellowpages Profiles, etc. i.e. why do people build backlinks to other pages that link to them? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to just build that backlink directly to your target?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adriandg0 -
Best practice to change the URL of all my site pages
Hi, I need to change all my site pages URL as a result of moving the site into another CMS platform that has its own URL structure: Currently the site is highly ranked for all relevant KWs I am targeting. All pages have backlinks Content and meta data should remain exactly the same. The domain should stay the same The plan is as follow: Set up the new site using a temporary domain name Copy over all content and meta data Set up all redirects (301) Update the domain name and point the live domain to the new one Watch closely for 404 errors and add any missing redirects Questions: Any comments on the plan? Is there a way (the above plan or any other) to make sure ranking will not be hurt What entries should I add to the sitemap.xml: new pages only or new pages and the pages from the old site? Thanks, Guy.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jid1