How To Clean Dead Weight Pages for Effective SEO
Recently, I came to know about "dead weight pages" and search a lot but didn't get a single article/guide on the topic.
In spite of this situation I got success in cleaning dead-weight (low quality) pages and blog posts from my blog. Because I want my blog to be a groom for internet ladies (users) and for my readers.
To make it happen I've tested some tactics and now ready to write about how anyone can clean a blog by deleting, removing or editing some dead weight pages and articles.
In fact,
Making high quality, mobile friendly and search engine ready websites is not easy. There are hundreds of key-points to check and make them flexible. And it needs hours of hard work to create a brand-able website or blog.
Whatever, if you've already created a blog/website and trying to make that great in quality of articles and pages by taking great steps in search engine optimization.
Then don't forget to read whole guide below and make sure you've access to your blog's control panel. Because after reading this guide you've to delete, edit or clean many pages of your blog/website.
The much content you publish the much efforts you've to make to have your blog/website clean from out dated pages.
Because that pages can ruin your SEO efforts and you can't rank your new blog posts higher in serps.
1.1 Start with services pages:
As many bloggers and freelancers earn money by completing give tasks from individuals and they change their services by changing terms or creating new services after they fail to done their old work.
In many cases few of them forget to delete or re-edit their old services pages.
Even, some of them were announce services in some blog posts and after replacing or changing services of their own- they just forget to remove or delete that lines of promotions.
To make your blog 100% accurate and trustworthy - make sure you don't have a promotional article or any page for the service you are no more able to give to needy people.
1.2 Blog posts or old articles:
Recently I've deleted 3+ blog posts and one page which is no more good for my blog.
Why?
Because that blog posts were outdated and make no sense to appear in related posts or search area.
And a page which is worth nothing to have on blog, because I can't give that service to my clients from now.
That's why I deleted 4 low quality pages from this blog and got happiness of having a cleaner blog.
You can do the same.
But, I suggest you to make sure that you don't lose your rankings by deleted some pages.
For example:
If you've 30 blog posts and 3 pages on your blog, and there were 1 page and 5 posts have low quality in terms of information.
What you'll do?
If you delete that 1 page, you can stay at your rankings.
But when you dare to delete 5 posts you'll probably lose rankings for many keywords.
So, what to do with that 5 blog posts?
Simple! Add informative content to that blog posts and make sure that after you add more information the post have to look high quality content.
News blog posts can't be updated with new and fresh content so its better to redirect them to new pages and after 1/2 weeks you can delete them without losing your rankings.
Also do a keywords research and create notes of traffic generating keywords from your old (outdated) content, now before deleting that old posts try to add that researched keywords in new articles.
With this technique you can save 70% rankings for all that keywords.
Probably you have an idea about that two words and their meanings.
We (bloggers) use that words to rate bad blogs and we also use high in quality words for good blogs.
What if you have a blog and you want me to rate your blog? are you expecting that I'll say "high in quality" or "low in quality"?
Think for 10 minutes, I am waiting here.
So?
What you think? don't know how I'll rate your blog? then read below.
Before rating any blog I firstly try to find garbage or spoiled content or any deadweight page.
After that I check design and domain.
But when I rate a blog my 70% priority goes to the content quality.
That's why I suggest you to clean out your blog from dead weight or you can say thin content which is low in quality.
By cleaning I mean to say that make your low quality blog posts informative and high in quality by adding more fresh content and information.
Don't delete them (if possible) try to update them.
Merely if you don't have time to update than revert all that low quality blog posts to draft folder or un-publish them so you can easily re-edit and publish them when you got time.
They just put together the links to all pages in a website and they don't give a minute to stylize that links or format them to show in categories.
Many of them think different and they add only category or archive links to many different pages.
This is right.
Then what is wrong ?
Hmm! The wrong thing is they forget to add a tag for search engine bots which tell them "do not index" such pages.
Yeah! its nice to have sitemaps, archive or category pages on your website/blog.
But you don't have to get them indexed by Google and other search engines (its better to submit a sitemap to web-master-tools).
Also, by doing this or hiding your content sitemaps you can have a safe blog/website.
Because their are many copy cats and many stealer(s) out there, who wants to know about whole content on a site.
You can show some categories in your footer or sidebar areas and don't show archives of your site/blog it may give bad impression on readers when you don't update your site/blog regularly.
So!
If you are on WordPress or any other CMS try to find out that how much pages you are using to thank your email subscribers or sending greetings to commentators.
Make a list of that pages and de-index them manually.
You can also a tag to tell bots that these pages are not for indexing.
There many SEO plugins for WordPress to do this.
What I suggest is:
Don't use pages for greetings or confirmation messages, instead use pop-ups and pop-unders.
Believe me they make sense and don't hurt your blog or rankings.
The last but not least.
This happens to not regularly updated blogs.
Whatever you are having high quality content or low, if you don't update your blog weekly or daily you'll see that your blog's search pages are indexed by Google.
All other search engines can index your search pages with queries and keywords people use to search in your blog.
You can also set the search page for no-index tag.
I also suggest you to use no-index tag for these pages (probably a blog have one page for searching terms so you don't have to add the tag on many pages).
Add this tag in HTML editing area of your page:
It will tell all search engine robots not to index your selected page(s).
You can also add this tag in privacy, disclaimer or terms of use pages.
After reading or doing above techniques if still you can't create a good blog. Or you can't improve your rankings than don't hesitate to comment below and let me so I can help you.
Thanks for reading about deadweight pages and search engine optimization tips.
In spite of this situation I got success in cleaning dead-weight (low quality) pages and blog posts from my blog. Because I want my blog to be a groom for internet ladies (users) and for my readers.
To make it happen I've tested some tactics and now ready to write about how anyone can clean a blog by deleting, removing or editing some dead weight pages and articles.
In fact,
Making high quality, mobile friendly and search engine ready websites is not easy. There are hundreds of key-points to check and make them flexible. And it needs hours of hard work to create a brand-able website or blog.
Then don't forget to read whole guide below and make sure you've access to your blog's control panel. Because after reading this guide you've to delete, edit or clean many pages of your blog/website.
Types of dead weight pages (low quality content)
To improve page-level-metrics we should consider working on these type of pages:- Outdated services pages and content (old blog posts/articles)
- Low quality or thin content (in terms of information)
- Category or archive lists pages (content map)
- Confirmation or thank you pages (after someone subscribes to your email list or leave comment)
- Search pages (when a user searches something and you send that search-paper to search engine bots)
Read below to know · How To Clean Deadweight Pages for SEO
1. Outdated services pages and content (old blog posts/articles)
This thing happens to almost everybody, even you are blogging on your blog or you are typing for a huge website like Mashable or Techradar.The much content you publish the much efforts you've to make to have your blog/website clean from out dated pages.
Because that pages can ruin your SEO efforts and you can't rank your new blog posts higher in serps.
1.1 Start with services pages:
As many bloggers and freelancers earn money by completing give tasks from individuals and they change their services by changing terms or creating new services after they fail to done their old work.
In many cases few of them forget to delete or re-edit their old services pages.
Even, some of them were announce services in some blog posts and after replacing or changing services of their own- they just forget to remove or delete that lines of promotions.
To make your blog 100% accurate and trustworthy - make sure you don't have a promotional article or any page for the service you are no more able to give to needy people.
1.2 Blog posts or old articles:
Recently I've deleted 3+ blog posts and one page which is no more good for my blog.
Why?
Because that blog posts were outdated and make no sense to appear in related posts or search area.
And a page which is worth nothing to have on blog, because I can't give that service to my clients from now.
That's why I deleted 4 low quality pages from this blog and got happiness of having a cleaner blog.
You can do the same.
But, I suggest you to make sure that you don't lose your rankings by deleted some pages.
For example:
If you've 30 blog posts and 3 pages on your blog, and there were 1 page and 5 posts have low quality in terms of information.
What you'll do?
If you delete that 1 page, you can stay at your rankings.
But when you dare to delete 5 posts you'll probably lose rankings for many keywords.
So, what to do with that 5 blog posts?
Simple! Add informative content to that blog posts and make sure that after you add more information the post have to look high quality content.
News blog posts can't be updated with new and fresh content so its better to redirect them to new pages and after 1/2 weeks you can delete them without losing your rankings.
Also do a keywords research and create notes of traffic generating keywords from your old (outdated) content, now before deleting that old posts try to add that researched keywords in new articles.
With this technique you can save 70% rankings for all that keywords.
2. Low quality or thin content (in terms of information)
You know what it means when someone says 'low in quality'?Probably you have an idea about that two words and their meanings.
We (bloggers) use that words to rate bad blogs and we also use high in quality words for good blogs.
What if you have a blog and you want me to rate your blog? are you expecting that I'll say "high in quality" or "low in quality"?
Think for 10 minutes, I am waiting here.
So?
What you think? don't know how I'll rate your blog? then read below.
Before rating any blog I firstly try to find garbage or spoiled content or any deadweight page.
After that I check design and domain.
But when I rate a blog my 70% priority goes to the content quality.
That's why I suggest you to clean out your blog from dead weight or you can say thin content which is low in quality.
By cleaning I mean to say that make your low quality blog posts informative and high in quality by adding more fresh content and information.
Don't delete them (if possible) try to update them.
Merely if you don't have time to update than revert all that low quality blog posts to draft folder or un-publish them so you can easily re-edit and publish them when you got time.
3. Category or archive lists pages (content map)
Basically many new coders and web-designers who got an diploma in web-designing or creating web-apps tend to create sitemaps with low quality visuals and tables.They just put together the links to all pages in a website and they don't give a minute to stylize that links or format them to show in categories.
Many of them think different and they add only category or archive links to many different pages.
This is right.
Then what is wrong ?
Hmm! The wrong thing is they forget to add a tag for search engine bots which tell them "do not index" such pages.
Yeah! its nice to have sitemaps, archive or category pages on your website/blog.
But you don't have to get them indexed by Google and other search engines (its better to submit a sitemap to web-master-tools).
Also, by doing this or hiding your content sitemaps you can have a safe blog/website.
Because their are many copy cats and many stealer(s) out there, who wants to know about whole content on a site.
You can show some categories in your footer or sidebar areas and don't show archives of your site/blog it may give bad impression on readers when you don't update your site/blog regularly.
4. Confirmation or thank you pages
I just want you to learn that how you can have a great and out standing blog when professionals can't have one!I've tested this and see that many professionals have made this mistake.
I don't want to mention any of them, as they may take this as bad quote.
So!
If you are on WordPress or any other CMS try to find out that how much pages you are using to thank your email subscribers or sending greetings to commentators.
Make a list of that pages and de-index them manually.
You can also a tag to tell bots that these pages are not for indexing.
There many SEO plugins for WordPress to do this.
What I suggest is:
Don't use pages for greetings or confirmation messages, instead use pop-ups and pop-unders.
Believe me they make sense and don't hurt your blog or rankings.
5. Search pages
Ha!The last but not least.
This happens to not regularly updated blogs.
Whatever you are having high quality content or low, if you don't update your blog weekly or daily you'll see that your blog's search pages are indexed by Google.
All other search engines can index your search pages with queries and keywords people use to search in your blog.
You can also set the search page for no-index tag.
I also suggest you to use no-index tag for these pages (probably a blog have one page for searching terms so you don't have to add the tag on many pages).
Add this tag in HTML editing area of your page:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
You can also add this tag in privacy, disclaimer or terms of use pages.
Conclusion:
To windup your work for creating a out standing and search engine friendly blog, you should do above steps and clean out the deadweight pages.After reading or doing above techniques if still you can't create a good blog. Or you can't improve your rankings than don't hesitate to comment below and let me so I can help you.
Thanks for reading about deadweight pages and search engine optimization tips.
