Removing Low Rank Pages Help Others Shine?

[HashtagHustler]

Good Morning!

I have a handful of pages that are not ranking very well, if at all. They are not driving any traffic, and are realistically just sorta "there". I have already determined I will not be bringing them over to our new web redesign.

My question, could it be in our best interest to try and save these pages with ZERO traction and optimize them? Re-purpose them? Or does having them on our site currently muddy up our other pages?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[BBEXNinja]

I think you have the right idea. If these low ranking pages have thin or low quality content, you can definitely re-purpose or remove them. It will probably lead to a better website/user experience. You can also consider merging content if you think it will make for better quality content overall.

I would take a look at this Moz Blog post on content auditing. It's pretty much the most thorough guide out there on the subject as far as I'm concerned.

[Linda-Vassily]

If they have no traffic and no links, I would not move them.

I would only re-purpose them if you think that by combining/editing them they would have value, but in a situation like this, that usually isn't the case.

(Unless we are talking about a significantly large percentage of your website becoming 404--in that case some rewriting/repurposing would be in order.)