489 blog posts, delete or keep them?

by 6 replies
7
Hello, old content makes up the majority of my website. There are 489 blog posts that are in one category called 'scam list'. These are reviews that I have made from 2014 to 2020, they are basically expired and old. They don't bring traffic.

Should I delete them or keep them? I wanted to delete them because the website has a lot of external and internal linking problems. But those blog posts have about 80% of my backlinks profile. So I am not sure what my options are. keep or delete.

One more question, do you guys think adding all of those blog posts in one category a bad SEO practice? They are all scams so I have added them in one category.
#search engine optimization #489 #blog #delete #old content #posts
  • You could get even in bigger problems if Google start looking for old stuff
    and then decide that you have a bunch of broken link and penalizes you.



    fastreplies
  • Hi, I think you should keep it. Google loves content and if you remove them all, it can penalize you
    • [1] reply
    • What you think he should do, versus what is best for him/her are two entirely different things. Google loves to put the best answer in front of people searching in the shortest time possible. If the content is crap, it won't help him/her one bit.

      Hi there.

      This is what you do.

      1. A quick reference in ahrefs using their backlinks tool. Check "Live", and look at the domains. Go through them one by one. If they are relevant to your content, put them aside.

      2. By relevancy I mean the following:
      - Would it make sense for a user on that page to follow the link to mine?
      - Is the content on the external domain of any value, or is it easily seen as spam?
      - Is it obvious, in any way, that the link is built to game the algo's?

      3. Go through Google Search Console. All posts that have not received clicks the past 12 months (6 if you're stricter) is put a side for purging.

      4. Start with the content you want to delete completely, and have those URLs serve a 404. No need to redirect unless you're actually seeing traffic from it. A 404 will tell search engines (content is gone) to eventually drop these out of the serps.

      5. With the list of links you want to retain, either a) create a new, fresh and improved piece of content that consolidates multiple posts/pages and redirect the old URL to the new one, or b) redirect them all to the homepage.

      6. Go through your website and fix all broken links. Don't do 301's unless you absolutely have to. The less you have, the better. The reason I am saying this is that redirect chains might cause you harm in the future with Core Web Vitals, + a bunch of other shit you can't really prepare for unless you're super experienced. Less 301s is damage control in practice.

      7. Update sitemap.

      8. Don't add everything to one category. Really. Kill your darlings, and provide value, or don't bother at all.

      9. Structure, structure and more structure.

      10. Update old content to reflect whatever the landscape is of whatever product you're reviewing today.

      11. Bonus: make sure you're not disallowing spiders to visit the pages you wan't gone.

      7.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • [DELETED]
  • someone suggested to noindex them first, once they are removed from google search, then I can delete them.
    • [1] reply
    • That would be another way to avoid problems.



      fastreplies
  • You can deleted some of them it is a good idea to setup a 301 redirect on them.
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    489 blog posts, delete or keep them?

    Hello, old content makes up the majority of my website. There are 489 blog posts that are in one category called 'scam list'. These are reviews that I have made from 2014 to 2020, they are basically expired and old. They don't bring traffic. Should I delete them or keep them? I wanted to delete them because the website has a lot of external and internal linking problems. But those blog posts have about 80% of my backlinks profile. So I am not sure what my options are. keep or delete.