Keeping the information in your blog relevant and useful is really important. So what do you do with old blog posts? Depending on the state of the information in the post you have a few options.

Update the content

If the information is still relevant and getting hits then keep it and update anything that’s out of date.

Merge the content

Merge posts that share the same topic and keywords into a new post. This way you’ll avoid potentially competing with yourself in search results.

Delete the content

Some blog posts stop being useful after a few years. An example could be a post that reviews a product or service which isn’t available any more. If you have posts where the information is no longer relevant you need to think about deleting them.

Using redirects

Google will probably have indexed your blog posts and other websites might be referencing them. When you delete or merge old posts you should think about redirecting them to a more useful and relevant post. By doing this you’ll preserve any search engine value that those posts have built up over time. You’ll also avoid presenting your visitors with any nasty 404 errors.