Removing old versions of a page.

[GoogleMcDougald]

Recently one of my good friends updated his iweb based screen printing site to wordpress per my recommendation. This update has helped dramatically boost his rankings to #3 for most local keywords. This new site is now V5 of his site, but all older iweb versions are still on the ftp. There are a total of 209 pages on the ftp, as versions of about 30 actual pages. The pages have changed significantly with each update, leaving very little duplicate content, but the old ones are still on the google index. Would it hurt the rankings to clean up these older versions & 301 redirect to the new versions, or should we leave them?

The site for reference is:

http://takeholdprinting.com

[danatanseo]

I think that's a personal choice more than anything else. If he really feels that those old pages are detracting visitors from the content he really wants them to be seeing, then perhaps 301 redirects would be fine. But, since the content is unique and his site is ranking very well, I see no harm in leaving them as is. Personally, I'd take them case by case, research how many inbound links they have, how much traffic they get (if any) and make a judgement call. It may be that you get rid of some, keep some and 301 redirect some depending on what the page is. Sorry that's not more definitive, but it's likely no one here knows his content better than the two of you. I'd just say it doesn't have to be all of one thing, whether it's leave them alone or redirect them.

Hope that helps!

[JaredMumford]

This is an age old question (kind of). Your answer lies lies in weighing the pros and cons of redirection and consolidation. The questions you need to ask are:

1. Are there inbound links targeting any of the 'old' pages in question. To find out, use OSE.

2. Are the "old" pages that are still in the index, ranking for anything of value? Use Analytics CONTENT > LANDING PAGES to check and make sure "old" pages aren't getting visits.

If 1. is yes, then you should look at the value of those links - if there are some really good ones (old, from pages with high domain authority, etc) then I would consider making a request to those webmasters that the link be changed to the new page URL. This is a courtesy most webmasters will acknowledge since it saves them having a dead link on their website.  If the answer is no, and there are no inbound links proceed to #2!

If 2. is yes, then you should definitely make sure that all inbound links have been changed to the new page before redirecting. However, in addition to redirecting, also make sure that the page you are redirecting to is similar in nature. If the ranking page has a lot of good content, then make sure the new page does as well, etc. I