We may be headed into fall, but I’m doing some “spring cleaning” on the blog, deleting old blog posts and removing a lot of irrelevant, outdated and zero traffic posts.

I used to keep all my posts, fearing the dreaded 404 Not Found error will harm my SEO. But then I discovered that having too many zero traffic posts is bad as well! So, I’ve been working my way through the older posts and either updating or deleting them.

Deleting Old Blog Posts

The Geek Mamas blog has been around for nearly ten years now, and that’s long enough to outlast companies and products that I reviewed years ago. It’s been pretty interesting going through the old posts and seeing which companies no longer exist or changed direction.

I’m not actually removing ALL the outdated posts. I’m keeping all the ones from way back when I first started. Back when I had no idea what SEO was, and just wrote for myself. It’s always interesting to be able to go back and read those early posts and see what I was doing or writing about. (interesting for me at least! lol)

And I’m even keeping some of the ones where the business closed and just adding that information. Maybe somebody is looking for that business and wondering where they went! And some posts of old businesses have pictures of my son and personal memories attached, like the one about Bay and Bee play space. It’s no longer around, but we spent many many hours there when my son was little.

Before I delete a post, I check its stats and make sure it isn’t getting any traffic. Some of these posts haven’t had a visit in two or three years! So, if there’s no personal attachment to it, it’s got to go.

Benefits of Deleting Outdated Blog Posts

Deleting old, outdated blog posts and cleaning up your blog can be beneficial for several reasons. These benefits range from improving your website’s overall performance to enhancing the user experience and SEO. It’s a good idea to periodically go back through your posts and make sure everything is still relevant.

Improves Website Performance

Older blog posts that are no longer relevant can slow down your website, particularly if they are not optimized. By deleting these posts, you can reduce the load on your server, which can lead to faster page loading times. This improved performance can positively impact your site’s overall user experience.

Enhances User Experience

Visitors to your website are looking for current and relevant information. Outdated content can be confusing or misleading, leading to a negative experience. Removing old posts ensures that your readers only encounter useful and accurate information, which can help build trust and credibility with your audience.

Boosts SEO

Search engines favor fresh, high-quality content. Outdated posts can drag down your site’s overall SEO performance. By deleting these posts, you can focus on optimizing your remaining content, making it more relevant and competitive. Additionally, this can prevent search engines from indexing low-quality pages, which can harm your site’s ranking.

Improves Internal Linking Structure

Outdated posts can lead to broken links within your blog, negatively impacting the user experience and SEO. By deleting these posts, you can clean up your internal linking structure, ensuring that all links direct to relevant and functional pages. This can enhance navigation and keep visitors engaged on your site longer.

It also gives you a chance to go through and add internal links, which is something I didn’t know about when I first started blogging.

Increases Engagement Rates

Outdated content is less likely to engage readers. By focusing on current and relevant posts, you can increase engagement rates such as time on page, comments, and social shares. Higher engagement can lead to better SEO performance and a more active community around your blog.

How to Know Which Blog Posts to Delete

If you are thinking of cleaning up your blog and wondering which posts you should delete, here’s the criteria I’m using:

Zero Traffic Posts

Zero traffic posts can negatively impact your blog by indicating to search engines that your content is not engaging or relevant, which can hurt your overall SEO performance. WordPress makes it easy to check the posts stats by clicking on the little stats symbol on the post list. You can also use a tool like Google Analytics.

I’m keeping posts that still generate a little traffic. It means somebody out there is searching for it. But if it hasn’t had a hit in a couple years, it needs to go!

Outdated Information

Remove posts with outdated information that no longer provides value. This includes posts about old events, technologies, or trends. I am keeping the event posts though, if the event happens annually or if I have personal photos and want to remember the event for my own reasons.

I did remove several posts about businesses that no longer exist when the post didn’t provide any information worth saving.

Thin or Low-Quality Content

When I first started blogging, sometimes it would just be a short update, maybe a paragraph. It would generate some interest the day of the post and then never be seen again. Unless it has sentimental value, it’s gone!

Duplicate Content

Google doesn’t like duplicate content! While going through old posts, I found a few articles where I had covered the same topic twice, almost writing the same thing. I kept the post with the better traffic and engagement and deleted the underperforming one.

So Long Old Posts!

I really don’t think anyone will miss the deleted blog posts or even notice the blog spring cleaning. If you haven’t gone through your old posts for a while, it’s something you may want to consider trying!