A while ago I did a couple of much-discussed posts: one on treating outdated pages and one on getting rid of multiple subpages. The important point both of these posts are missing is that before trying to decide what to do with the obsolete page you should first define its SEO value.
A great thread at WebmasterWorld forums discusses the issue of evaluating how much the page is worth. So how can a page SEO value be determined?
- Toolbar PR: a bad indicator. Pages with graybar PR are likely to receive solid Google referral traffic and have backlinks.
- Organic rankings: a bad indicator. Rankings cannot be a good performance indicator by nature. Rankings come and go. There are too many site/ page independent criteria that influence rankings: Google personalization, geo-targeting, new "SearchWiki" Google feature, new competing pages that can take your position, etc. (Note: of course, that also depends on the search term; if the page is top-ranked for something like [poker], I wouldn’t delete that page :));
- Traffic: a bad indictor. As the previous one, traffic can be temporal (but it also depends on the amount of traffic);
- External in-links: a good indicator. If the page is able to pass PR, it does have value. External links can also be removed, of course, but usually (if the page remains live or redirected to a new relevant up-to-date version), there’s no reason for the inbound links to be removed).
From a pure search engine equation, value likely equals external links and historic performance.
So what are possible ways of treating the outdated pages based on the above:
- delete the pages and let the URLs return 404 header (if the page has no value at all);
- move the pages to the archive and amend internal linking to "leak" less internal PR (e.g. remove sitewide links and keep only in-content links from other articles);
- keep the pages but remove all reference from the site (let them be orphan pages): if they have too little value to think more about that;
- 301-redirect the pages to new relevant versions (the best option provided you have new versions to redirect to).
What would you choose?
Personally, I look at about 3 different quality aspects first :
1) The relevance and diversity of inbound links. Are they all coming from the same publishers? Are they coming from authority sites? Are they coming from relevant niche resource sites? Where are these inbound links fro mand why did they earn the link?
2) The quality of the content. Is this content just published for seo results or to attract links, or is it real and updated content? Is the author lending opinion and thought to their work? Or is it just rewriting a news article or paying a copywriter? Also, I like to dig into the archives to see if the content has been quality and relevant over a long period of time, and changes made to the site over the years.
3) The networks and monetization options the publisher uses. Are they using crap reviews to monetize their site? Then that’s a no or minimum quality. Are they using pop-up windows which may one day label the site as malicious? Are they part of an awesome network of relevant publishers like the Entrecard community?
Thats the only good way to determine a websites status? There has got to more more ways than that!
When I evaluate a website I consider 3 things:
1. Theme of website
2. Quantity and quality of inbound links
3. Content
@Matt, We hosting, it’s actually not about the value of a website but about the value of a page. And yes, there may be more criteria as well – so please share your thoughts!
Ann ive got to be honest, im usually a huge fan of your posts but that wasnt the best.
when you say a “page value” value to who? the user?, the site?, google?
“Organic rankings: a bad indicator. Rankings cannot be a good performance indicator by nature”
Rankings are what a site is built for surely, rankings usually equals traffic which usually equals happy site owner, happy Google and most importantly happy user.
@James, you are surely right but if you look at the beginning of the post and to the original thread at WebmasterWorld forums, you will see that this is about determining the quality of outdated pages before taking decision what to do with them. Thus when a page is outdated (meaning it has old obsolete content), it has no or little value to the end user (and can even be distracting). In this situation, pure “mathematics” is used to determine if the page should be deleted, redirected or just left as it is.
As for rankings, I linked to another post discussing why they cannot be evaluating criteria (while they are surely important).@James, you are surely right but if you look at the beginning of the post and to the original thread at WebmasterWorld forums, you will see that this is about determining the quality of outdated pages before taking decision what to do with them. Thus when a page is outdated (meaning it has old obsolete content), it has no or little value to the end user (and can even be distracting). In this situation, pure “mathematics” is used to determine if the page should be deleted, redirected or just left as it is.
As for rankings, I linked to another post discussing why they cannot be evaluating criteria (while they are surely important).
Thanx Ann for replying
I suppose an outdated pages value depends on the site itself, for example a news sites outdated pages may seem to have no value but may contain information that is still relevant now.
If your looking at getting rid of a page then i guess i would look at what links to it, sure you can 301 the url but then this may mean incoming links are no longer relevant and could damage the sites image and trust.
I know you mention this but i dont think i would just replace the content as sometimes people do want to read “old stuff” if you see what i mean.
It is an interesting subject and something i may look at myself.
May i ask Ann, if you had an old post on this site that was say PR4, 50 views a day(50/50 search and referral traffic) what would you do with it?
An interesting topic…I would like to judge the value of a page by:
1. The quality of content it has. This doesn’t necessarily mean exhaustive text content as in like the “best guide” on an industry topic. It can just well be a multimedia presentation or even an image as well conveying a piece of info in an interesting way.
2. The backlink profile of the page. This again is largely dependent on point # 1 [Content]. But the value of a page is influenced by the quality and relevance of the pages linking to it.
The above 2 factors will make a page valuable from both user as well as SE perspective.
As for how to treat outdated pages, I am a big fan of 301 redirecting those pages to a somewhat relevant page on the website [if available], else to the homepage.
@James, in the situation you are describing I would most probably do nothing with the page and leave it as it is. If it contains a too old information, I would just update the post and link to a more up-to-date source (either at this blog or elsewhere).
If you get rid of an old page ’cause it is outdated, you may risk deleting links and other stuff from that page, upset the website’s structure and may experience some other changes. Even if you consider a page worthless – google may not. Of course you need to handle the matter somehow if the obsolete page creates confusion with your visitors for some reason.
Let us use this page as an example of the value of a page is determined by the results the owner expects. If I buy high-octane gas and my car acts as if I pumped regular gas; I am safe to say either my car is bunk or the fuel is not what I wanted. In the end I must test and monitor both where I purchase the fuel and the results. The best way to determine a web page value is analytics. At oevae.com we know that technology and business are ever evolving and how we use technology today may not be the same tomorrow. That is why staying tune to the history, content, relevance, market trends, innovations, and goals is most important.
Gibron T. Williams
Head Honcho
Oevae Marketing Consultants