Deleting Pages in One Fell Swoop
-
We're about to delete a bunch of unnecessary pages, largely responsible for our duplicate content woes. These are low traffic pages, and they were NEVER a good user experience.
I just want to check and make sure I'll be setting up the proper way to account for their absence:
1. Set up 301's for all of them so they point to related pages
2. Remove them from the Sitemap
3. Also remove any internal links that previously pointed at them.
Is there anything else I'm missing here? Or any additional moves I can make that I'm not thinking about?
Thanks!
-
These pages are extremely light on the content, and they have barely any search traffic, if any.
A user reaches these pages by clicking on a call-to-action button (contact us, or get a quote, or make an offer). The resulting URL would pass through dynamic url parameters from the previous page, but the content on the page itself consists only of a form to fill out and one paragraph.
Though that one paragraph would have different text depending on which call-to-action button they clicked on, it's entirely the same in structure and code, with the exception of the parameter-laced URL.
We're still keeping the call-to-action buttons, but our developers are changing the form structure so there are not hundreds of these pages that are duplicate content. It's going to be a vast improvement for the user.
Thank you for all of your suggestions. I'll definitely use them in the future if we decide to re-purpose pages on our websites.
-
Some thoughts...
Are any of these pages getting any search traffic?
I don't know how many pages you're talking about, but you might want to check if any of them have any inbound links and how many. It may be worth keeping the page and improving it rather than 301 redirecting it to a page that isn't getting the links.
Without knowing what's on these pages, I'd also suggest looking to see if there's any useful/quality content chunks that can be merged into the pages you'll be keeping. Are there any golden nuggets hiding in there that could help make the pages you're keeping even better?
Have you checked your analytics to see if any of the pages your removing are performing. You don't want to remove the one page that's answering the one question all your visitors want to know. (Look at your bounce rate/exit rate and also your site search too). What part, if any, do these pages play in your conversion funnel.
<object id="plugin0" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" width="0" height="0" type="application/x-dgnria"><param name="tabId" value="ff-tab-37"> <param name="counter" value="577"></object>
-
That's what I would do.
I think that this will be helpful.
Good luck.
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
-
Will google be able to crawl all of the pages given that the pages displayed or the info on a page varies according to the city of a user?
So the website I am working for asks for a location before displaying the product pages. There are two cities with multiple warehouses. Based on the users' location, the product pages available in the warehouse serving only in that area are shown. If the user skips location, default warehouse-related product pages are shown. The APIs are all location-based.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Airlift0 -
Should I even do product page schema?
If I have no reviews/ratings on the page itself and special/limited time offers and just a regular product page with a standard price, is there any ability to do product schema with it getting flagged for errors? Google's Structured Markup Testing Tool threw me an error when I test it without any of those: | One of offers or review or aggregateRating should be provided. | And even if it's possible, is there any point?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SearchStan0 -
Webshop landing pages and product pages
Hi, I am doing extensive keyword research for the SEO of a big webshop. Since this shop sells technical books and software (legal books, tax software and so on), I come across a lot of very specific keywords for separate products. Isn't it better to try and rank in the SERP's with all the separate product pages, instead of with the landing (category) pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C0 -
301: Delete old page, or keep?
Hey everybody! So, for those who have followed some of my posts I have myself in a bit of a quagmire that I am not going to get into. Some solutions have come to light and others are still pending and I will update my past questions with solutions! On the safer side of things I have a new situation. As I am going through our pages we have three different pages for "Admissions" Admissions Admission Guidelines Admission Information The "admissions' page has no link or feed to the other admissions page, and actually has no content on it at all. The "Admission Guidelines" page feeds to the "admission information" page, which although is extremely redundant is a different project for a different day. I am planning on putting a 301 on the "admissions" page and sending it to the "admission guidelines" page. When I do so, should I delete the old page? Does it matter? Is there a pro or con for either? Thanks guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
There's a website I'm working with that has a .php extension. All the pages do. What's the best practice to remove the .php extension across all pages?
Client wishes to drop the .php extension on all their pages (they've got around 2k pages). I assured them that wasn't necessary. However, in the event that I do end up doing this what's the best practices way (and easiest way) to do this? This is also a WordPress site. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digisavvy0 -
High number of items per page or low number with more category pages?
In SEO terms, what would be the best method: High number of items per page or low number with more pages? For example, this category listing here: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/90/fsx-civil-aircraft/ It has 10 items per page. Would there be any benefit of changing a listing like that to 20 items in order to decrease the number of pages in the category? Also, what other ways could you increase the SEO of category listings like that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640 -
Should I index tag pages?
Should I exclude the tag pages? Or should I go ahead and keep them indexed? Is there a general opinion on this topic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NikkiGaul0 -
Good category pages - do you have examples?
Hello all. Currently doing a major update to my e-commerce website which sells tractor spare parts. I would like to optimize the category pages, which feature the parts from a particular manufacture of tractor parts. Does anyone have good examples of well optimized product page which do not have a detrimental effect on the visual quality of the site? It is important to see the products. The best I have found is: http://www.simplyelectricals.co.uk/ but I sure a better solution must exist Thanks David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidLenehan0