Removing many pages from my site a problem?

[artsp]

I have to remove two blog categories from my site which amounts to about 98 pages. I will redirect the URLS to other appropriate pages on my site. Will Google rank my site different if I lose that many pages?

[HashtagJeff]

This really depends on a number of different factors...

• How many pages does your site have in total? Removing 98 pages from a site that only has 100 would be pretty drastic. If your site has thousands of pages though, that 98 really isn't a whole lot.

• What's the quality of these 98 removed pages? If you're cleaning out thin/weak content, then removing these is likely a very good strategy.

• What's the topical focus of these 98 pages? If those 98 pages are random or irrelevant compared to the focus of your brand, then removing them may create less dilution of your main content.

All in all, it really depends on the purpose of removal here and where it fits in your overall strategy.

Hope that helps.