Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Delete old blog posts after 301 redirects to new pages?
-
Hi Moz Community,
I've recently created several new pages on my site using much of the same copy from blog posts on the same topics (we did this for design flexibility and a few other reasons).
The blogs and pages aren't exactly identical, as the new pages have much more content, but I don't think there's a point to having both and I don't want to have duplicate content, so we've used 301 redirects from the old blog posts to the new pages of the same topic.
My question is: can I go ahead and delete the old blog posts? (Or would there be any reasons I shouldn't delete them?)
I'm guessing with the 301 redirects, all will be well in the world and I can just delete the old posts, but I wanted to triple check to make sure.
Thanks so much for your feedback, I really appreciate it!
-
Thanks so much for your feedback!
-
Hi Tara,
Since you already placed a 301 redirect from the old post to the new one, then you're all set and there is no need to delete the old posts because as soon as you, or a crawler, access the old page,s you'll be redirected to the new ones without "seeing" the old content.
If you are referring to deleting the content from your CMS, then you can go ahead and do so as they are not accessible anymore. Just make sure that the 301 redirects are still in place.
-
Deleting a post on your site should always be your last resort and 301 redirects are used as a way to remediate the damage that the deleted post would make.
Now, what would be appropriate in your case will depend on the type of website and post. If the post is ranked on google and has backlinks, it would be more beneficial to you to keep both the post and the page and to add a link to the page from the post, while keeping differences between both posts content and meta so that they are not marked as duplicate.
Otherwise, if your posts aren't put on a separate directory p.e. "/blog/post-name" and the title is SEO-optimized, you can just add the extra content and convert it to the page while keeping the previous backlinks and content.
If the old post doesn't have any backlinks, does not rank and has a URL that will be different from the page that you are looking to create, then the best solution would be to create a 301 redirect. After creating the redirect, the post will not be accessible by users or crawlers so you can go ahead and delete the old post.
Daniel Rika - Dalerio Consulting
https://dalerioconsulting.com/
info@dalerioconsulting.com
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
-
301 redirect from dynamic url to static page
Hi, i want to redirect from this old link http://www.g-store.gr/product_info.php?products_id=1735/ to this one https://www.g-store.gr/golf-toualetas.html I have done several attempts but with no result. I anyone can help i will appreciate. My website runs in an Apache server with cpanel. Thank you
Technical SEO | | alstam0 -
What to do with old content after 301 redirect
I'm going through all our blog and FAQ pages to see which ones are performing well and which ones are competing with one another. Basically doing an SEO content clean up. Is there any SEO benefit to keeping the page published vs trashing it after you apply a 301 redirect to a better performing page?
Technical SEO | | LindsayE0 -
Is the Authority of Individual Pages Diluted When You Add New Pages?
I was wondering if the authority of individual pages is diluted when you add new pages (in Google's view). Suppose your site had 100 pages and you added 100 new pages (without getting any new links). Would the average authority of the original pages significantly decrease and result in a drop in search traffic to the original pages? Do you worry that adding more pages will hurt pages that were previously published?
Technical SEO | | Charlessipe0 -
Increase 404 errors or 301 redirects?
Hi all, I'm working on an e-commerce site that sells products that may only be available for a certain period of time. Eg. A product may only be selling for 1 year and then be permanently out of stock. When a product goes out of stock, the page is removed from the site regardless of any links it may have gotten over time. I am trying to figure out the best way to handle these permanently out of stock pages. At the moment, the site is set up to return a 404 page for each of these products. There are currently 600 (and increasing) instances of this appearing on Google Webmasters. I have read that too many 404 errors may have a negative impact on your site, and so thought I might 301 redirect these URLs to a more appropriate page. However I've also read that too many 301 redirects may have a negative impact on your site. I foresee this to be an issue several years down the road when the site has thousands of expired products which will result in thousands of 404 errors or 301 redirects depending on which route I take. Which would be the better route? Is there a better solution?
Technical SEO | | Oxfordcomma0 -
301 redirect not working
Hi there! I have recently moved a domain that has been indexed by google and setup redirects so that it forwards to the new domain. It seems like the only redirect that actually is working is the canonical and main domain but every other page and or page nested within a folder are not working. Here is an example of some of the redirects. Am I doing this wrong? It seems to be going to the new domain but can't find the actual pages.... RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | twotd
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !agoodsweep.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://agoodsweep.com/$1 [L,R=301]
redirect 301 woodstoveservicerepair.html http://agoodsweep.com/woodstoveservicerepair/
redirect 301 /westchesterchimney.html http://agoodsweep.com/west-chester-chimney/ Thanks in advance for any help!!0 -
Can you 301 redirect a page to an already existing/old page ?
If you delete a page (say a sub department/category page on an ecommerce store) should you 301 redirect its url to the nearest equivalent page still on the site or just delete and forget about it ? Generally should you try and 301 redirect any old pages your deleting if you can find suitable page with similar content to redirect to. Wont G consider it weird if you say a page has moved permenantly to such and such an address if that page/address existed before ? I presume its fine since say in the scenario of consolidating departments on your store you want to redirect the department page your going to delete to the existing pages/department you are consolidating old departments products into ?
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Blog post summary pages
I'm wondering post-panda if its wise to block access to blog post summary pages like this one: http://www.howtotradestocks.org/blog/page/15/ Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | PeterM220
