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What should I do with outdated and irrelevant content on a website?

by akarev
13 replies
Hi everyone,

On our corporate website we have a blog where we publish articles which are directly related to our company (house heating systems and gas cylinders) and some articles which are completely irrelevant to our core business, but which might be of interest to our potential clients. In other words, the idea was to attract potential customers to our corporate blog through quality content about house building and inside of those articles include information about our own products and services.

Recently I've been told that it is not a good idea to include these type of articles (blog posts which are not directly related to our core business), because Google might be confused as to what our core business is about. I was advised to remove these blog posts from our corporate blog. By removing I mean completely removing pages and setting a 410 status to tell Google that it is not a 404 error but that these pages were intentionally removed.

Our website is available in Latvian and Russian language. [link removed by moderator]

I would like to hear some independent advice from community members on this topic.

Thank you very much in advance.
#content #irrelevant #outdated #website
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  • Profile picture of the author retirement business
    Hello sir. I read your full discussion and I thought if you get content for your web site. choose one educated person who read your website. then he write different content related your website. Than, you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Medon
    Yes, the advise is fine. Remove that content because it serves no purpose. Other than confusing google, it will increase bounce rate and yoursite may look spammy.
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    Google ranks pages, not website.



    Have you ever looked at how many things Amazon.com sells? How about walmart.com.


    Google does not seem to be confused.


    Originally Posted by akarev View Post

    Hi everyone,

    On our corporate website we have a blog where we publish articles which are directly related to our company (house heating systems and gas cylinders) and some articles which are completely irrelevant to our core business, but which might be of interest to our potential clients. In other words, the idea was to attract potential customers to our corporate blog through quality content about house building and inside of those articles include information about our own products and services.

    Recently I've been told that it is not a good idea to include these type of articles (blog posts which are not directly related to our core business), because Google might be confused as to what our core business is about. I was advised to remove these blog posts from our corporate blog. By removing I mean completely removing pages and setting a 410 status to tell Google that it is not a 404 error but that these pages were intentionally removed.

    Our website is available in Latvian and Russian language. [link removed by moderator]

    I would like to hear some independent advice from community members on this topic.

    Thank you very much in advance.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mehedi Talha
    Just delete them and I think it is the best decision. Because irrelevant content might harm your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author manpreetWeb
    It is ok to remove the content that is not related. You should focus on updating it with more relevant content.
    Thank you
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  • Profile picture of the author tcstix
    Yes, delete them. The info on the website should be relevant to the brand. I've heard doing a 301 redirect to the home page is best.


    Set pages you don't want/need indexed like the privacy policy, etc. to "noindex" to better spend your crawl budget.
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  • Profile picture of the author Naheed
    If you have to frequently publish content on your website then hire a content quality analyst. he/she would help you to manage, analyze and sustain the quality of content in terms of appearance and information as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author catcat
    Rewrite it and find a way to connect the 2 topics - the current content and your business model. There is always a way to make a connection.
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    Need a Writer?
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  • Profile picture of the author N1coleW
    Of course, rewrite or remove outdated content if it doesn't make any sense
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
    This is Google's official video.

    Google Removing Content From Google - WMConf Lightning Talks
    11/6/2020

    Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate at Google, goes over different ways to remove content from Google Search including the Search Console Removals tool, permanent removals, and other solutions.

    Remove information from Google (general) â†' https://goo.gle/remove

    Search Console Removals tool â†' https://goo.gle/2QFVgAY

    Removal troubleshooter for Google's services â†' https://goo.gle/33I6VEx

    Removal Troubleshooter for third-party pages â†' https://goo.gle/3mhv2ll

    Remove personal information off Google â†' https://goo.gle/2wzm4vK

    Now you know.
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    In the minute it took me to write this post.. someone died of Covid 19. RIP.
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  • Profile picture of the author extrememan
    Ever add new content to the outdated content or remove the outdated content.
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  • Profile picture of the author fastreplies
    Why would anyone to bother with something that doesn't create any problems
    with your presence and can be as useful in a future as it was helpful in the past?

    One man old stuff is another man's new stuff. Even if old data, articles etc.
    presently updated, having older content won't harm new updated content.

    I wouldn't delete anything even if my site would run out of space. My advice:
    keep it, because one day you'll say: what's wrong with me?



    fastreplies
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