January 2, 2018

Remove the Outdated Content from Your Website

Introspection reignites individuals to plan something better in life. It equally applies to the websites. Operating websites also means that you keep assessing them at regular intervals for several things, including enlisting old or outdated content to get them removed. Why should you do so and take steps to remove such contents as and when required? Webmasters and website owners need to thoroughly evaluate the content of their websites at regular intervals, regardless of whatever industry or vertical they fall under.

If you are a website owner or manager of a company, then you must know how to remove outdated content from your website for a better user experience and improve your ranking.

Even if your pages are high-ranking, don’t forget to update outdated content as and when required. Why should you do so? Keep in mind that pages in the top SERPs generate traffic, but you won’t be able to convert them due to outdated content. Thus, keep that important factor into consideration. The resultant effect would be in the form of an increase in bounce rates due to outdated content failing to engage your readers.

Even with the old contents, you are left with good choices: you can either remove that completely or update to reuse after a certain level of rephrasing. If the changes sought are minimal, then it is better to just edit that to get done instantly. Whatever step you take, make your decision only after doing thorough research. It is important to ascertain that your other tasks are not hampered and you have total concentration on the rest important roles. Before moving further, you must know the reasons when to remove outdated content.

Reasons Why You Should Remove or Update Old Contents

Outdated and aging content can rank well in search engines, but at the same juncture, they hardly retain their potential to create a host of issues for the site owners, so it is better to avoid them. Below are some common reasons why outdated information can become a nuisance and/or liability for you. Think about it and plan your website management accordingly.

1. More Opportunities to Rank Higher on Search Engines

Why remove outdated content from your website? The answer is that outdated content or non-performing pages can affect your search engine ranking. Removing these pages helps boost search engine optimization (SEO) and gives you a chance to rank on the first-loading SERP. However, you must ensure you understand the difference between outdated and old content. Even if the content is old, it may need to be updated as long as the subject is relevant. Removing old and obsolete content and adding fresh blogs means a better user experience and improvement for the brand.

Search engines prefer websites that keep updating themselves. It is crucial to note that there are hardly any specific rules to update your website, but search engines like ‘quality over quantity’. So, having less content that is high-quality works better than a lot of articles with compromised quality. Make sure the existing contents are accurate and relevant in the present.

2. You Work for a Finance Firm

As medical information demands to stay relevant and accurate, financial advice must be cutthroat and precise. Keep the content highly informative and relevant to present-day terms, and the content should provide clarity to the reader. Website owners must update content targeting investment and expenditure at regular intervals. Any outdated information regarding finances can cause a significant drop in your website’s ranking.

Your financial firm may garner a negative reputation if users who signed up for updated information find the contents obsolete. It is one of the most important reasons why removing outdated content from your website is essential. Make sure to keep contents more than three years old inaccessible. The world and market of finance and investment are frequently changing. Keeping that in mind, you need to update or remove information that has become outdated with time.

3. Your Location has been Changed

Here, the location includes your physical and digital sites. If you have moved from your current location, it is your responsibility to update the website so your users know about the shift. If needed, add redirections so that your readers can find a way to connect with your website. It only affects your reputation if readers visit your location to find out you no longer belong there. So, you must remove outdated content from your website and update the website with current information.

If you are unable to change it, then just search by writing “How to Remove Outdated Content From Your Website.”

4. You Want to Remove Distorted Information

When you keep something irrelevant on your website, you are misleading your users with wrong or distorted information, which is an example of forgery. With the help of removing outdated content, you can reduce the spread of misleading data. This results in driving more organic traffic to your website. There are many practical examples of misleading information, like an outdated phone number, an address you have moved out of, or an email ID that no longer exists. To avoid that, you must update all the obsolete information with the current data. That eventually helps redirect the traffic to the correct location, helping you get more page views.

5. Updated Content Reduced Bounce Rate

A bounce rate is the percentage of users who exit the site after viewing the current page. It is a metric that determines how quickly a user leaves a specific location. When your website is fresh on content, it is evident that users will appreciate it and spend more time reading related and popular content. But if they find relevant content and need accurate information, it will increase the bounce rate, which is unsuitable for your website analytics.

6. Discontinued products or services which are never, ever coming back

Having the pages on the products & services that you have discontinued would be good until the replacement completely takes over. Outdated and aging content can lead to high bounce rates. Inaccurate information being followed would therefore result in hurting your brand or reputation.

If you are unable to remove the content of products and services that are no longer available, you need to search “How to Remove Outdated Content Without Hurting Your Ranking.”

7. The features of products & services are completely changed

If the features of your products or services have changed completely, then you should modify your content accordingly to suit the tastes of your readers. There are several notable points that you must keep in consideration while re-optimizing your website’s dead content:

Don’t Create A New URL
Update Your Keyword Research
Optimize Your Call To Action
Start Promoting It Again

8. Medical or financial contents must be changed over the period

Medical or financial topic-related contents need to be changed with time to stay on top of what is the current trend and what isn’t. Readers always seek current as well as useful information that provides them with thorough information to help make their decisions. If your website contains outdated information, then it is bound to harm your website by increasing the bounce rate.

How do you handle the outdated content?

You must handle outdated content meticulously to control the bounce rate and catch the attention of new customers. Our content and SEO strategists at SEO Content India advise the below-mentioned tips about how to handle outdated content professionally.

A. Re-write the outdated content

Google always gives preference, and indeed, it literally loves fresh, quality content. It is better to rewrite the old ones and republish them with new zest. Interlink them with other pages to improve ranking and thus gain the authority of your website. It is advisable to hire any professional SEO content writing service for the said purpose. Their trained and professional writers and editors will bring that new lease of life to your content to make it thoroughly revamped and unique.

B. Redirect outdated content

It is also a great idea to redirect your content to something more current. Indeed, this process is comparatively easier and simply requires one to find a new page for outdated content to point to that implements the 301 redirects. Removing outdated content could save your website from being penalized.

Summary: Remove Outdated Content from your Website

Outdated or obsolete content won’t help you generate queries. The fact remains undeniable: such content will certainly lead to an improved bounce rate and more harm to your online branding. Therefore, it is advised to keep identifying such contents and thus take proper action to avoid any unforeseen or unfortunate situations that would be damaging to you. If your content is not completely outdated and needs a bit of editing, then go for that. Slight editing of low-quality pages can improve the ranking of your website.

This is how you can fulfill the purpose of keeping your website in the lead while reusing outdated content. The only requirement is that you make sincere efforts by keeping an eye on your website regularly. To get more tips for removing outdated content and its importance, connect with our experts directly.

Some Related Posts:

Benefits of Creating Unique and Engaging LinkedIn Profiles

Great Tips for High Ranking Transformational Website Contents