301 or No Index For Website Overhaul?

[imbckagn]

If you were going to clean up about 1000 pages of content to conform to the new algorithm update how would you do it?

I have about 1000 pages of content I am going to either 301 redirect or use the no index meta tag on. The 1000 pages are all on the same topic. My plan is to create about 15 high quality pages that cover the same topic as the 1000 pages. Now do I just no index the 1000 pages or 301 them to the new 15 pages I create?

The entire website only has about 1020 pages as it stands so this is a major change.

[tedster]

Google's Maile Ohye addressed this at SMX last week. As I understand it, if the removed URLs are not intended ever to be indexed again, then block them with robots.txt or remove them where practical. If they will eventually be improved and you want them indexed again, then use a noindex robots meta tag.

See this article from Vanessa Fox [searchengineland.com] about the session.

In a case like yours, if the thin page has good backlinks or still gets search traffic, I'd say 301 redirect the URL to the new URL that includes the information. Otherwise, I would remove that old URL altogether and serve a 410 Gone. I wouldn't want to carry 1000 redirected URLs around for a 20 URL domain.

[TheMadScientist]

If they cover the same content as the 1000 pages, then 301, otherwise, noindex or just plain remove imo ... It might be a combination of the possibilities ... Some topics you will probably directly cover on the new pages, so 301 the old versions of those ... Some you probably won't cover at all and they may have thin content or something, so remove those ... Some may be useful, not directly covered by the new pages, and not too thin, so noindex those.

There's really not many 'one-size-fits-all' answers any more these days.

[imbckagn]

Thanks for the feedback.

Basically all the pages still get traffic but they are keyword optimized pages (junk pretty much). I mean the pages are all 500 words or more of unique content but they are low quality. What stinks about getting rid of them is I am able to convert the traffic to these pages.

The home page of this website has been smacked down since the very beginning, May 4th 2010. I'm hoping by chopping the website down to about 30 pages of good content it helps bring back the home page. I have done everything else I can think of with no rebound of the home page.

I think I will go the 301 route and see what happens. Worst case scenario this doesn't help and I put the pages back up, how do think Google would treat that?

[tedster]

If the pages are getting traffic and they convert, then why are you taking this action?

[imbckagn]

Because my home page has dropped for every single keyword it was getting traffic for since May 4th. In this last update it lost the last two keyword phrases it was getting traffic for.

I have done everything I can think of to reverse this from looking at links to complete site redesign. I have been following this last update and read that low quality pages can bring down an entire websites rankings.

This would basically be a last effort to try and turn things around.