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That's one thing I hadn't considered thus far - thanks for the tip, Anthony! I'll make sure the URLs are removed properly. I just think creating 'new' pages would be easier than working through the mess the old SEO company left behind. With decent content on-site and a few relevant in-content links, it shouldn't (hopefully) take too long to get back up the rankings!

Not too bad really - there are some links that could be questionable, but they're just from press releases (the links themselves are OK, it's the other links on the referring sites that are concerning). The only real concern I had was all these 'rubbish' links that had suddenly expired and whether that was going to have some sort of effect on the site. My instinct was telling me that there wouldn't be an issue - but thought I would make use of the community here to see if people had experience of this! Thanks again!

I think the drop has already happened - so that's why I'm re-writing/improving the content for that area of the site and just starting fresh with it. I'm sure with the right bit of promoting (through social media, etc.) the new section will pick up a bit of traffic. It's a tough decision about the re-direct though - because the SEOMoz Page Authority for the affected pages is close to 50. Thanks for your replies guys - really appreciate the insight!