Archive Pages or Have Lots of Pages

archive pages, search engines

[JayDev]

Hi,

I was thinking about archiving all web pages that have been on the site for a while. What I mean by archiving is still have them accessible if a user click on a search listing but no longer have it the site as a "linked" page.

Is it better to refresh content and archive older pages?

OR

Is it better to add navigation to a page of topics and simply have the older pages show up last (for example show on the last page of given records)?

I am trying to build a website and wanted to get some feedback.

Thanks,
SymDev

[Quadrille]

You will get much more benefit, from readers and search engines, if you leave them where they are - no renaming or mooving of folders or files - but by all means update your internal navigation - maybe have one link throughout the site to '/archives/' and have /archives/index.htm list and link to the pages.

Every page has a value, and older pages may well have incoming links which help your site; also, there's no point in keeping pages if people cannot find them!

If you do feel the need to move pages, eg to asection called /archives/, then do it as you go along, a regular small-scale houskeeping, rather than a major one-off reorganisation. This is to avoid losing too many links at one time,and to avoid the need to set up multiple individual 301 forwards.

Remember that to the SEs, a renamed page without a permanent redirect is 'one page removed, one new page added'.

[JayDev]

Thanks for the reply. That makes a lot of sense!