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So I'm going to write up a big post for my case study about why I'm talking about this later (look for that if you care), but the basic question is:
Have you tried content pruning?
Obviously I want to know about results too. I just read about 10 blog posts about it, with this one from CognitiveSEO being the most worthwhile. It has a lot of case studies in it, but you know how those go. Who knows how much of that is fluffed up or properly isolated.
But they're promising. If you are to take it all at face value, people are seeing results within a month of the pruning.
Some of them:
What is Content Pruning?
Content pruning is the act of finding low quality pages, whether that be zero serp visibility or traffic, low word count, low value to users, outdated content that won't become relevant, and anything else that can bloat the index like accidental media file pages or search results.
So what's the point of this? I see it having several reasons, some being fact and others being theory:
The basics of my situation is my main site started with an idea that isn't feasible any more, and I also used a certain section to post "easy stuff" in order to keep freshness up. I'm looking at about 300 posts that I plan on cutting down to about 150 posts. Even if I get no results, I'm going for it anyways, because it'll tighten my focus and cut a lot of work off my plate.
All 150 posts of mine are absolutely dead weight. I read an interesting term on that CognitiveSEO post. Someone started talking about "algorithmic drag." They also talk about the iceberg metaphor of how the more ice you have growing at the bottom of the iceberg, the heavier it is and the less mass can pop out of the water at the top.
Anyone dealt with this? I'm going in and will report my results here, but I won't start till mid-December probably. I'm guessing it can get done in one to two days, and we'll see what happens after the holiday dip.
Have you tried content pruning?
Obviously I want to know about results too. I just read about 10 blog posts about it, with this one from CognitiveSEO being the most worthwhile. It has a lot of case studies in it, but you know how those go. Who knows how much of that is fluffed up or properly isolated.
But they're promising. If you are to take it all at face value, people are seeing results within a month of the pruning.
Some of them:
- Flat out deleted posts
- 301'd them around
- No-index'd the pages but left them on the site and sitemap
- Improved a handful, deleted others
What is Content Pruning?
Content pruning is the act of finding low quality pages, whether that be zero serp visibility or traffic, low word count, low value to users, outdated content that won't become relevant, and anything else that can bloat the index like accidental media file pages or search results.
So what's the point of this? I see it having several reasons, some being fact and others being theory:
- Better user experience
- Less places for juice to distribute and become diluted
- Better 'focus' of keywords across the site, tightens relevancy (in my case)
- Panda possibly looks at how much crud you have bloating the index and gives an average 'quality score' to your site based on all pages.
The basics of my situation is my main site started with an idea that isn't feasible any more, and I also used a certain section to post "easy stuff" in order to keep freshness up. I'm looking at about 300 posts that I plan on cutting down to about 150 posts. Even if I get no results, I'm going for it anyways, because it'll tighten my focus and cut a lot of work off my plate.
All 150 posts of mine are absolutely dead weight. I read an interesting term on that CognitiveSEO post. Someone started talking about "algorithmic drag." They also talk about the iceberg metaphor of how the more ice you have growing at the bottom of the iceberg, the heavier it is and the less mass can pop out of the water at the top.
Anyone dealt with this? I'm going in and will report my results here, but I won't start till mid-December probably. I'm guessing it can get done in one to two days, and we'll see what happens after the holiday dip.