Refocusing a site's conent

[94501]

Here's a question I was asked recently, and I can really see going either way, but want to double check my preference.

The site has been around for years and over that time expanded it's content to a variety of areas that are not really core to it's mission, income or themed content.

These jettisonable other areas have a fair amount of built up authority but don't really contribute anything to the site's bottom line. The site is considering what to do with these off-theme pages and the two options seem to be:

1. Leave them in place, but make them hard to find for users, thus preserving their authority as an inlink to other core pages.

or...

2. Just move on and 301 the pages to whatever is half-way relevant.

The 301 the pages camp seems to believe that making the site's existing/remaining content focused on three or four narrower areas will have benefits for what Google sees the site as being about.

So, instead of being about 12 different things that aren't too related to each other, the site will be about 3 or 4 things that are kinda related to eachother.

Personally, I'm not eager to let go of old pages because they do produce some traffic and have some authority value to help the core pages via in-context and navigation links. On the other hand, maybe focusing more would have benefits search benefits.

What do think?

Best... Darcy

[Wi-Phye]

If these other pages were of no rank value I would say I am part of the 301 camp. But seeing they do have some value I think the loss of any traffic to your call to action would out weigh the questionable benefit of narrowing your focus.

So keep them around to support the main pages. Maybe push them down a category level.