High Ranking Site with tons of junk on the server

[deuce1s]

Hey All,

So to make a long story short, we own a site that has been passed through many hand and many strategies. We are in the financial field and rank high for many relevant search terms.

My job is now to audit/optimize and purge out site of the garbage that has collected over the years (since 2002).

During the audit I have found many issues, fized them, but I am not sure own how to proceed with the follwing issues.

Any advice to solve the following would be greatly appreciated!

1. 9932 orphan files - does just removing them affect my SEO.. I like a clean house, can I somehow use them to my benefit?

2. Hundreds of 404s with many external "follow" links that we are no longer getting juice from

3. 8 Sitelinks in webmaster tools, but only 4 show in our search

I am straight n00b so sorry if this is 101 for anyone you but your input would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!

[AdamThompson]

1. 9932 orphan files - does just removing them affect my SEO.. I like a clean house, can I somehow use them to my benefit?

If they are truly orphaned (not used by anyone or linked to from anywhere), you could probably just delete them.

2. Hundreds of 404s with many external "follow" links that we are no longer getting juice from

I would probably 301 redirect them to a very relevant page.

3. 8 Sitelinks in webmaster tools, but only 4 show in our search

That's not unusual. Google may show the others on some different searches.

[deuce1s]

Amazing thanks for the quick response!

You just listed exactly what I had in mind but needed to confirm.

Thanks for your input