What do you do with dead categories on your Link List?

[Greenguy]

I've got a couple of stinkers that I could merge in with other categories (I have no idea what compelled me to make all those blonde categories)

So let's say I want to combine the Blonde Hardcore page with the Blonde Nudes page into one "blonde" category.

Obviously, with the 2 choices for page names, I'd combine them onto blondes.htm - but what if it was a toss up? Id there a method to determine which page would be better to keep active? Maybe blacklinks? PR? Current traffic?

Now that I've combined them, what do I do with the old blonde_hardcore.htm page? I'd of course remove all links to it from the domain, but there's still other sites linking to it. Do I 302 it to the new page? Save a copy & just leave it as is so that the script no longer updates it? 404 it? Spam it up? (I kid...I kid)

So I'm looking for advice, especially from people that have done this in the past.

[plateman]

thats a good question and have a few pages I want to shit can on my LL also, I was gonna just change the page into another category and let the spiders do there job

my misc page I am thinking about getting rid of, and that ezine page that made me 25.00 in 3 years

imo I think it hurts a LL in the engines to have pages that never change and get new links = content, or pages that dont change and/or have a bunch of aff links...

[bDok]

Couldn't you have the URL just point to the new one either through a mod_rewrite or a 301 redirect? Or 302?

That's what I would think to do.

Cheers,
B

[LowryBigwood]

Originally Posted by Greenie

Do I 302 it to the new page? Save a copy & just leave it as is so that the script no longer updates it? 404 it? Spam it up? (I kid...I kid)

Personally, since you already had it up and running, I would of left it be and just added hosted promo's if it needed. But, I'd do a 301 redirect since you already combined them.

301 vs 302?

Pulled this from an authority site.

"You decide to move the content on one or more pages of your site to a new URL. Sometimes you may do this simply because you are improving the site architecture, or you may do it because you are moving to a new domain."

"In this situation you should use a 301 redirect. Other redirects are dangerous to use. Both the 302 redirect and the meta-refresh technique for performing redirects are potentially harmful to your site's ranking in the search engines. The 301 redirect is seen as a "permanent move" of the content, and the links to the page, to a new location and the search engine acts accordingly. The 302 redirect and meta refresh are seen as "temporary moves" of the content."

Hope that helps.

[LowryBigwood]

More interesting reading on this issue...

"If you are using a client-side meta-refresh or a JavaScript redirect, the search engine may mistakenly conclude that you are using doorway pages. This is because often the client-side redirects make use of doorway creators in order to feed one version of a page to the visitors and the other version to the search engine spider.

In the case of a 302 Temporary Redirect, the Page Rank and other authority factors are not transferred to the new page. This is because the search engine assumes that after a certain period of time, the page will be returned to its original location. Therefore, “301” is the safest method to redirect old pages to new ones."

[Greenguy]

Yes, 301 it is what I meant (I knew one was permanent & one was temp, but I guessed wrong - lol)

Still looking for opinions & past experience

[Preacher]

I rolled up a category into another, and just left the old page name there. I now post static links on the page and kept it in my navigation but changed the anchors pointing towards it. It was kind of an unusual situation though becuase I had no trades on the page and very few recips pointing to it, so I hesitated to even mention it.

Now if you can tell me what to do with a webcams page with recips and trades, I'd just love to know that.

[RB]

As for me i just add new name and new sites there and all is ok

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by RB

As for me i just add new name and new sites there and all is ok

That's because you're a moron.

[LowryBigwood]

Originally Posted by RB

As for me i just add new name and new sites there and all is ok

Damn... I needed that.

[Tommy]

I only did it once but I just took down all links to the page
and left the page there for like a year and then one day when i noticed it, i deleted it

[Danny]

A couple of years ago I changed name on a category at PH.

I simply changed the name in the script, building a "newname/" category instead of a the "oldname/". The old page has been left as is and I haven't touched it for years and now it shows as nr1 on gggle for that keyword...

I say fuck 302... Leave the old pages as is and send all onsite traffic to the new newname category.

[oast]

I have done mod_rewrites in the past without (AFAIK) any penalty

RewriteRule ^/links/old-category1.html$  /links/new-category.html [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^/links/old-category2.html$  /links/new-category.html [R=301,L]

Tells the spiders that the pages have been moved and can be found at the new location from now on.

Another option is a 'hidden' redirect like

RewriteRule ^/links/old-category1.html$  /links/new-category.html [L]
RewriteRule ^/links/old-category2.html$  /links/new-category.html [L]

The new page is displayed, but the address does not change in the browser, so looks like old page is still being maintained. Yes the content is the same, but it is only one or two pages, so not as if whole site is being copied. As there are no internal links to the old pages, they will gradually lose PR in favour of the new pages.

[Surfn]

Originally Posted by Tommy

I only did it once but I just took down all links to the page
and left the page there for like a year and then one day when i noticed it, i deleted it

Same here. I seldom delete a category because it is so painful to rearrange the links.