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Thank you for your help-=good advice

One SEO implication that redirecting all of your error 404s to the home page is that it could lead to Google and other search engines to flag your site for having 'soft 404 errors.' Best practice is to have a custom 404 page, that returns a 404 message, that then helps the end user find what they are looking for.  Either a list of top categories, a search box, or a phone # to call tech support. Here's what Google says about why you shouldn't do this: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181708?hl=en Returning a code other than 404 or 410 for a non-existent page (or redirecting users to another page, such as the homepage, instead of returning a 404) can be problematic. Firstly, it tells search engines that there’s a real page at that URL. As a result, that URL may be crawled and its content indexed. Because of the time Googlebot spends on non-existent pages, your unique URLs may not be discovered as quickly or visited as frequently and your site’s crawl coverage may be impacted (also, you probably don’t want your site to rank well for the search query [File not found]). We recommend that you always return a 404 (Not found) or a 410 (Gone) response code in response to a request for a non-existing page. You can improve the user experience by configuring your site to display a custom 404 page when returning a 404 response code. For example, you could create a page containing a list of your most popular pages, or a link to your home page, or a feedback link. You can also use the Webmaster Tools Custom 404 widget to add a search box and more site search options to your site. But it’s important to remember that it’s not enough to just create a page that displays a 404 message. You also need to return the correct 404 or 410 HTTP response code.

Hi Vince Not sure what they're trying to achieve there.  That code will be ignored.  The "noindex" command is meant to be used within a tag, such as: .  It's not acknowledged (by Google anyway) as a directive in an <a> tag.</a> <a>Would presume they're trying to use it in the same way you can use a rel="nofollow" tag, but this won't have the same effect. Puts a little bit of doubt in my mind as to the integrity and quality of the site going forward, but that's probably a bit harsh. In short, the link will be behaving just like a normal one would, at least for Google. Hope this helps.</a>

It would be good if the original poster could return and confirm (or otherwise) that the site runs on WordPress. I am not sure that you can easily edit the archives pages headers to show the NOINDEX tag other than to edit the WordPress header.php file. The latter could get replaced when WordPress is updated. Certain themes make it easy to add your own custom tags through a configuration menu.

you might find the below link useful 26 Inspiring ideas for evergreen travel blog content

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it!

Right now there is not penalization for using the rel="author" markup in pages that are not posts, articles, white-papers... tl;dr all kind of authored content with a visible by line. But I confirm you that using authorship other than those kind of contents is deprecated by Google, and I won't be surprised that will be penalized or simply not shown. In those pages, if you really need to use structured data, and it may be useful for Entity Recognition, I suggest you to use the Schema.org Person.

Gary, you made my day! Thanks a lot. Now I know what i need to do.

What about in the case where putting the MPN (manufacturer part number) might be advantageous? Would you have the main product page, and use many MPN's in the Title, or H1 tags, or product name? Lots of people, when searching, use "Manufacturer MPN" as their search when they're in buying mode. I could see how having separate pages for each would be useful in this case, increasing conversions & rankings because of the MPN-specific content. Love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for getting back to me! Carla

Thanks Robert, really appreciate your answer. I will start on the 'to-do' list you provided now. It really is a broad question and one that I didn't know where to even begin so thanks for understanding. Reading some of the old threads now but like your game plan. Thanks!

Awesome advice from both of you. Thanks!

I would suggest keyword research and planning out how you want them to flow. You will also need to look at your permalinks since you are using wordpress as you might prefer to show the category in the URL Easiest path would be to just let the post name be the permalink, excluding categories in the url, then you just move them to their respective categories. Take your time and carefully plan everything out first, you will also need to fix the old URLs to point to the new ones so don't forget that.

Thank you all for your answers...very helpful!

Hi Daniel! Did any of these responses answer your question?

The days of republishing content are over.  The most successful aggregation sites either rewrite, or add their own spin (i.e curation) of the content. See this video by Matt Cutts on the issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sfUDr3w8I But of course, this will never be as good as original content.

It's better to use 301 redirects to maintain the SEO value if possible. Redirect the blog post urls to a corresponding content page on your website if such content exists. It's better for the customer experience too. If the blog posts are about topics or events that our outdated, a custom error 404 page is a better option so that the visitor won't waste time looking for something that doesn't exist anywhere on your site, even in another format. Listing your sitemap or a search feature can be helpful.

I agree with Jesse and Jonathan that you should usually have your website connected to your blog in some sort of "brand.com/blog" fashion. The only situation where I would argue different is if plan on creating a lot of content and you are imagining your blog as a movement or other subculture, that will market your brand.  For example the company Citrix blogs at WorkShifting.com, which is their blog about working "outside of the office" which overall helps them since all of their tools are based around work shifting.

Thank you for the fast response, indeed I'll better use fresh content. I was wondering if using content from archive from my old domain would not lead to punishment from google. Thank you! Kind regards, Menno