Really old site. What to do with hundreds of old posts?

[Siberian]

I have a website that I’ve owned since 2004. It was a passion project from before I knew anything about anything and I've neglected it for years, to the point that it gets virtually no traffic today.

I want to resurrect it, mainly as an opportunity to learn and as a case study, although I’m hoping to make a little money along the way. It's not in a commercial niche so ads are my only realistic option for monetisation, and they’ll have a low RPM.

About the site

It has 900 posts, split about 70-30 between unfocused blog posts and reasonably well targeted informational keywords.

It has lots of high quality links still in place from 2004-2007 when it was most active, from sites like CNN, BBC, the Guardian, Wired, Newsweek etc. Almost all of these links go to the blog posts not the keyword targeted posts. Current Ahrefs domain rank is 26.

But, it’s been untouched since 2011, and is an absolute mess. As well as being neglected by me, the site has been hit by penalty after penalty since and traffic has declined from c5,000 daily in 2010 to c5 daily today. The informational posts were trashed by Panda in 2011, and it's been hit by more updates since then too.

I redirected some of the informational posts to a new domain in 2013 and they did well there. But, because I was an idiot, I let that domain drop a couple of years ago and can't re-register it.

What I’m doing & my questions

I’ve been working through the Ryuzaki’s brilliantly comprehensive kitchen sink approach, and after an initial content audit (really impressed by Ahrefs new Wordpress plugin!) I am trying to figure out what to do with the old blog posts.

Anything with links which used to get a decent amount of traffic I’m either redirecting to a keyword post or (most often) updating the post and adding contextual links to other relevant keyword posts.

But what should I do with the hundreds of other old blog posts that Ahrefs reports don’t have any links? Many of them are decent articles in themselves, but as well as having no links they have no traffic and no realistic hope of getting any.

Should I just delete them all? Redirect them all to the most relevant alternative page(s)? Keep them and add links to useful pages?

Does anyone have any other tips or suggestions for what I could do with the site?

 

[JamaicanMoose]

You're on the right path. If the posts aren't relevant to 2022, meaning they weren't evergreen and have zero chance of getting traffic, and they have no links, then just delete them. At this point you pretty much have an expired domain with a few strong links going to it. Fresh canvas for you to paint on.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Before I deleted the content, I'd familiarize myself with all of the articles you have on the site again, then I'd familiarize myself with the vast array of keywords available for the niche.

The goal here would be to ask myself "Do any of these articles remotely match the intent of any of these keywords?" I'd connect those dots in a spreadsheet. It would be real easy to then go in and optimize those articles for the first time. You'd be saving a lot of money and time if this ends up being possible. And because the content is really aged you might be surprised at how fast it pops in the SERPs for some of those keywords.

 

[secretagentdad]

Go full ax man on the domain.

I’ve seen some pretty amazing success with cutting greater then 50% of urls.
Don’t be shy.

Also consolidate the top few articles and do a couple of 301s specifically aimed at the biggest money keywords.
The big win is ranking one of the top couple keywords in your niche. This is the strongest arrow in the quiver of old sites with good content.
You will need to use good valid pages that already rank long tails or it’s a waste of time. The trade off of getting a number 1 for a big item is lopsidedly profitable in favor of going for a big one even if you lose a few long tails at first you tend to get them back anyway with new pages over time.

 

[uzz]

I’ve seen some pretty amazing success with cutting greater then 50% of urls.

Any specific method for this to limit 404 errors in search console? Or no cares given here - just delete, 301 ones that can be saved and burn the rest?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Any specific method for this to limit 404 errors in search console? Or no cares given here - just delete, 301 ones that can be saved and burn the rest?

404 errors in Search Console have zero effect on anything. Every time some dummy tries to link to your site and misses the last character in the URL when they copy and paste, that'll be a 404. It's not a measure of any problem with your site. That info is there for your convenience and use, but not any indication that there's a problem that's effecting your rankings, etc.

 

[uzz]

404 errors in Search Console have zero effect on anything. Every time some dummy tries to link to your site and misses the last character in the URL when they copy and paste, that'll be a 404. It's not a measure of any problem with your site. That info is there for your convenience and use, but not any indication that there's a problem that's effecting your rankings, etc.

Wrong - they have an effect on my OCD of having a perfect score of 0 404 pages lol.
Thanks, will prune away.

 

[secretagentdad]

I’d only redirect the very best stuff if it was my project.
404s are only a big deal if you’re a screw up that doesn’t clean up dead internal links.