How do you decide which old content to retire, redirect, or merge?

I started my site (https://destinyarchitecture.com) in 2016 when I was completing my life coaching certification. I was already a Reiki Master. I tend to go back through and cringe at old writing. If it can be rewritten and salvaged, then great. If that can't be done, I'll delete the post. I will kill old graphics, check links, and make sure I'm changing outdated information. I often add a line at the top like, "This post edited/updated on (date)..." Ahrefs tells me what all the broken links are...and I admit I hate making redirects because I find them tedious. I'm working on becoming better at that. 😉

Regularly audit old content in your CMS. Update metadata, refresh outdated information, and optimize for SEO. Improve content quality and user experience.

A Content Audit can be a lengthy and time consuming task if done manually. With the advancement of machine learning and other capabilities this effort can be reduced significantly. Each page of the site can be scored for user relevance and evaluated to see if visits to that resource contributed to a conversion event (form fill, action taken etc.). Be sure to review what tools are available before you undertake this important activity.

One challenge of managing content in a CMS is the accumulation of outdated or unused assets over time. Features like Digital Rights Management and Asset Expiry are key tools to manage expired content effectively. While some teams implement archival mechanisms for these assets, others may not. If there are no legal requirements to retain certain content, setting up a purge mechanism alongside archiving can help keep your CMS streamlined. Additionally, some CMS platforms offer asset insights and usage reports that can guide content managers in deciding what to keep, archive, or permanently remove.

A strategic approach would be to identify content pieces that violate current SEO best practices – particularly thin content under 300 words or pages with significant keyword cannibalization. Low-performing articles that haven’t attracted significant traffic in 6+ months are also prime candidates for pruning. Another consideration is brand evolution – content that no longer aligns with current positioning or areas of expertise should be evaluated. The technical health of content is also important – pages with broken internal links, outdated schemas, or accessibility issues may need to be addressed. Going forward, implementing clear content archiving policies will help proactively maintain site quality.

Don't jump the gun with a big content overhaul. Before going through with substantial content changes or consolidation, first identify your top-performing pages that have sustained their quality and ranking - for at least the past year. These pages should be kept as is, or strategically updated or redirected. Utilize Google Search Console Insights to export the top ranking URLs for further analysis. But there's more to it. Once the content changes are live, you must then meticulously review all pages to ensure accurate content display and confirm they resolve with the expected "200" or "300" redirect status codes. Be cautious of redirect chains, as they can lead to broken links.

When deciding whether to retire a web page, consider whether it has a “published” or “last updated” date visible to the user. On a well-managed site, the user should be able to expect that any page without a date is still current. Some older content may be important for historic reasons (such as a press release announcing a major organizational change). In those cases, the date should be clearly labeled, and the page should provide a clear user journey to newer content.

It’s a good idea to set a threshold in terms of how many visits the page is bringing in - if your feeling is you want to take it down and the numbers are pretty tiny then no need to stress over it. But always check before actually zapping anything; visits, conversions from that page, searches from that page etc. Redirect only if there is a true replacement.