How To Manage Old Content on a News Website

This template allows for a nuanced assessment, helping you prioritize which content to retain, update, or remove.

Performance benchmarking

After scoring is complete and before you remove any content, establish a performance benchmark by measuring key metrics such as:

This baseline data lets you compare performance after the removal and assess whether the changes were beneficial, neutral, or harmful.

Without benchmarking, you’re flying blind. Post-removal comparisons reveal if crawl efficiency has improved, Search visibility has shifted, or specific sections have lost traffic. Use these insights to adjust your content removal strategy and make informed decisions.

Stakeholder communication

Content removal impacts multiple teams—editorial, marketing, SEO, legal, and compliance—each with different views on what content is valuable or essential to retain.

As Georgia Tan, Co-founder & Head of Search at Switch Key Digital, advises:

“Remember to involve all stakeholders in decision-making and keep communication clear throughout each stage. Clearly articulate the rationale for changes, such as the benefits of more engaged readers, enhanced SEO performance, and increased subscriptions.”

Aligning stakeholders on removal priorities ensures you:

• Don’t remove valuable content prematurely
• Preserve content critical to brand reputation or legal compliance
• Achieve SEO and user experience goals

Technical content removal

Deleting a URL without a plan risks losing valuable link equity. The goal of removing content isn’t just to hit delete but to redistribute assets to strengthen your site’s foundation.

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