4 Reasons to Delete Your Old Website Content

What do you do with the old and outdated content on your website?

When it comes to content creation and online marketing, we usually believe that any content is good content for as long as it brings traffic and potential leads.

That is true to an extent, but it is not 100% accurate all the time.

There are times when old and outdated web pages on your website may actually damage your credibility and the reputation of your business. In that scenario, an extra couple of hundred views that those old web pages bring are not worth it.

Furthermore, it is easier to not think about old and outdated content especially when they are your high-performing pages. However, it is exactly when you should be more concerned. After all, it means that a huge majority of your readers are finding and reading those pages.

Hence, you should be asking yourself:

• Are those pages reflect the current and most up-to-date information on my website?
• Do those pages follow the best SEO practices?
• Is any of those web pages leading to broken links and dead-ends?
• Are those pages still relevant to the products and services you are offering today?

You get the point.

In this blog post, we take a look at four different reasons why you should delete your old content. Moreover, we will also briefly discuss what you should do instead when it is not absolutely necessary to delete the outdated content.

Reason #1: Rebranding or Relocation

Businesses rebrand all the time.

However, when you do rebrand a business, it is important to go back and get rid of the old brand mentions and messaging as the old brand no longer exists.

It is perfectly fine to mention your band history in the ‘About Us’ page, but anywhere other than that might confuse first-time website visitors — especially if you are not clear enough. There is simply no point in having a mention of your old brand anymore — unless it is for mentioning that you have moved on to a new name and business.

Similarly, if you have relocated your business to a new location, it is very important to get rid of the old Google My Business pages that redirect to your old business location.

It leads to a bad user-experience and makes your website look totally outdated. Instead, you should update and redirect users to pages that are now relevant.

Reason #2: When New Information is of Utmost Importance

There are some niches that thrive on evergreen content. However, there are also niches that heavily rely on new, updated information.

In fact, not constantly updating information and content might give you a bad name in certain niches.

Blogs related to health advice, scientific studies, and medical findings are the prime examples. You cannot afford to have old and outdated researches (that are no longer relevant) on your website.

Some users may land on those pages, act on the outdated (wrong) advice, get in trouble and then blame you. It is better to be safe than sorry.

Reason #3: A Change in Services

Have you recently changed the services you offer? It happens all the time.

A copywriter may extend her services and become a content marketing consultant. A PPC expert may become an online marketer strategist.

If there are services that you no longer offer, they should not be present on your website. It is not only going to bring you unwanted queries, but it also leads to a poor user experience.

More importantly, you will never be able to establish yourself in the new niche that you have selected with outdated content present on your website that still talks about the services you no longer offer.

Depending on the type of content you had — and by how much you have changed your services — you should either update your web page or delete it altogether.

Reason #4: Discarded Products or Features

If you are completely moving on to a different product, it might be a good idea to leave discontinued product pages for a little while, but you should remove them eventually.

Each discontinued product or a product feature should have an expiration date, and an overstay shouldn’t be welcome. If the new product is in the same niche, the best way to deal with it is to do a 301-redirect.

However, if the new product is fairly different from the previous one, deleting outdated content and creating new pages may be a better option.

It also goes for bloggers that regularly do product reviews. If a product has been discontinued, you should clearly mention it on the web page and also list other similar products that the visitors can explore.

Doing so will mark your credibility and authority in your niche.

Final Words

Rewriting, repurposing, and redirecting content are all good options. However, it is also important to know when you should delete old pages altogether.

Remember, it is all about user experience.

Think from your customers’ and website visitors’ perspective. If you were a potential customer visiting your own website, would you like to see a particular outdated page there?