Content Pruning: How to Remove Underperformers to Boost SEO

Your website’s content stopped climbing the SERP ranking out of nowhere. Even though you’re publishing content pieces consistently, they are no longer making a buzz. 

Plus, your top pages are losing SERP positions. The new articles barely make it to page two. And this led to the organic traffic graph flattening over time. Meanwhile, older posts that once performed well are now fading away.

Fret not, as you aren’t alone in facing this issue. Basically, it’s a sign that your site needs content pruning. 

Let’s explore what content pruning is and how it can help you clean up & boost your site’s SEO performance.

What Is Content Pruning? 

Content pruning is the process of removing, updating, consolidating, or deindexing low-value pages on your website to improve overall SEO performance. Think of it as decluttering your site. That means keeping what’s useful and clearing out what no longer serves your audience or search engines.

For example:

• A 2018 blog post titled “Top Social Media Trends for 2018” still gets 0 traffic, has outdated information, and doesn’t align with current search intent.
• Three separate posts on “How to Improve Website Speed” target the same keyword, causing keyword cannibalization.
• You also have a thin 150-word article explaining a feature that no longer exists.
• Several old product pages remain indexed even though the products are discontinued.

All of these are perfect candidates for pruning. You can delete, update, merge, 또는 redirect them to ensure your site stays clean, relevant, and competitive.

How Content Pruning Works

Content pruning follows a structured audit-and-fix process. It helps you identify weak content and decide what to update, merge, or remove.

1. Identify Underperforming Pages

The first step is a full content audit. You look for pages with low traffic, low engagement, declining impressions, outdated info, or duplication.
Tools like Google Search Console, GA4, and SEO platforms help surface what’s dragging your site down.

2. Choose What to Do With Each Page

Not all weak content gets deleted. Some pages need:

• Updates to stay relevant
  
• Merging with similar pages
  
• Redirecting to stronger content
  
• Deleting if they’re obsolete
  
• Deindexing if useful to users but not needed in Google’s index
  

3. Implement SEO-Safe Changes

This includes adding 301 redirects, improving metadata, rewriting sections, fixing internal links, and ensuring the new structure is clean and crawlable.

4. Measure the Impact

Once pruning is done, you track improvements in rankings, crawl rate, impressions, and organic traffic.
Most sites see noticeable gains because Google can focus on their best content.

Types of Content That Are Typically Pruned

Some pages add value, while others quietly drag your rankings down. Here are the common content types that are ideal candidates for pruning.

• Low or zero-traffic pages, such as old blogs or thin articles that bring no visitors.
• Outdated content, including posts with old stats, discontinued products, expired offers, or irrelevant news.
• Thin content pages with shallow information or very low word count that don’t satisfy search intent.
• Duplicate or near-duplicate content like similar blog posts, tag pages, or overlapping category pages.
• Keyword cannibalizing pages that target the same keyword and compete with each other.
• Old product or service pages for items no longer stocked or services no longer offered.
• Low-value tags or archive pages, especially common on WordPress sites, and often indexed without adding value.
• Auto-generated or poor-quality content created quickly for SEO but lacking substance.

How Often Should You Do Content Pruning?

As a general rule of thumb, you should review content pruning opportunities every 3-6 months. For most websites, a full pruning cycle every 6 months is ideal. This gives you enough time to gather meaningful performance data, identify declining pages, and update or remove content before it starts hurting your overall SEO.

If your site publishes content frequently or operates in a fast-changing industry, consider pruning every 3 months. Regular checks help you catch outdated information, keyword cannibalization, and dips in traffic early, so you can fix them before they become major problems.

Smaller websites or those with slower publishing schedules can prune once a year, focusing mainly on outdated topics, thin pages, and posts that no longer match search intent.

Regardless of your schedule, it’s useful to monitor key pages monthly. Sudden traffic drops, ranking changes, or new competing content can signal the need for immediate pruning outside your regular cycle.

Consistent pruning ensures your website remains up-to-date, authoritative, and optimized for long-term SEO growth.

How to Do Content Pruning (7-Steps)

Kick off with Content Audit 

Before you remove, merge, or refresh anything, you need a clear picture of what currently exists on your site and how each piece is performing. 

Auditing content will help you understand which pages are valuable, which are outdated, and which may be hurting your SEO.

The main purpose of a content audit is to evaluate your entire content library and determine what deserves to stay, improve, or go. It highlights weak pages, redundancy, keyword cannibalization, outdated information, and content gaps. 

This gives you clarity on where your SEO efforts should go instead of blindly updating posts that may not matter.

GetGenie’s SEO Insights makes this process faster and far more actionable. You need not manually scan pages one by one. With this tool, you will get instant signals about declining pages, lost keywords, low-hanging fruit keywords, and competing pages. 

You can quickly see which posts need attention, which keywords have lost rankings, and where internal competition might be hurting your visibility.

By reviewing metrics like Lost Keywords, Pages Requiring Attention, and Competing Pages, you will get a complete snapshot of which pages aren’t working. 

To find Lost Keywords (Beyond 100 in the SERP or have zero impressions), open GetGenie’s SEO Insights and navigate to the “Keywords” tab on the menu. Here, select “Lost Keywords” to instantly see which terms your pages have lost rankings for and identify where content may need updates or improvements.

To locate Pages Requiring Attention (Beyond 20 in the SERP), go to the “Pages” tab inside SEO Insights. Click on “Pages Requiring Attention,” and you’ll get a list of URLs of declining pages. You can view their positions, clicks, & impressions & prioritize which pages to refresh first.

To identify Competing Pages, head to the “Competing Pages” section under the same dashboard. This view shows you where multiple pages on your site are targeting the same keywords. Review the list to decide which content should be merged, consolidated, or re-optimized for clearer intent.

With these insights, your audit becomes a clear and data-backed roadmap for what to prune, update, consolidate, or rewrite.

Find out Which Content Pieces Need Pruning

Once you’ve gathered the data from GetGenie’s SEO Insights, it’s time to decide which content pieces actually need pruning. Start by reviewing the Lost Keywords, Pages Requiring Attention, 그리고 Competing Pages you identified. 

These insights show you which keywords have lost visibility. Also, they show which pages are underperforming and which are competing with each other. From there, you can identify which pages need to be removed, merged, or refreshed.

Next, evaluate these underperforming pages manually to look for thin or generic content pieces that don’t offer depth or unique value. These pages typically struggle to rank and often drag down your overall site quality. 

Flag outdated or incorrect info, especially posts with old stats, discontinued products, or no longer relevant tips. These should either be rewritten or removed. 

Also, label content pieces with intent mismatch. That means the pages that may or may not contain valuable info, but they aren’t answering users’ questions or they aren’t satisfying user search intent. 

Finally, check for irrelevant topics that no longer fit your niche or business goals. If a page doesn’t support your current content strategy or serve your audience, it’s a strong candidate for pruning. 

By combining SEO Insights data with qualitative manual content review, you can confidently decide what stays, what gets updated, and what should be phased out.

Check for Technical SEO Issues

Before you start pruning content, it’s crucial to ensure that your site is free from technical problems. Even high-quality content can struggle to rank if your website has hidden SEO issues. 

Running a technical check helps identify obstacles that could be hurting performance and user experience.

Some common technical issues to watch for are as follows:

• No-index tags- Prevents search engines from displaying your content in search results
• Slow page load times- Frustrate visitors and increase bounce rates. 
• HTTPS problems- Expired SSL certificates or improper redirects 
• Non-mobile-friendly site- Leads to poor user experience and lower search visibility

Thankfully, several tools make it easier to spot and fix these problems. Google PageSpeed 인사이트 highlights performance bottlenecks and offers recommendations to speed up your pages on both desktop and mobile.

Let’s say your site’s mobile version loads slowly. With PageSpeed Insights, you can unveil that just by inputting the site URL. 

The tool not only highlights the problem but also provides actionable solutions. Whether it’s to optimize images, improve server response times, or address other technical issues, you will get clear recommendations instantly. 

Addressing these technical hurdles before pruning ensures that the pages you keep are fully optimized to perform well in search results.

Review Your Backlink Data

The next step is to evaluate the backlink profile of the underperforming pages. As you may already know, it’s one of the strongest ranking factors, and pages with weak or toxic links may struggle to rank, even if the content itself is solid.

Tools like SEMrush make this process straightforward. Start by entering the URLs of the pages you’ve flagged for pruning or improvement. SEMrush will show you key metrics, including the number of referring domains, total backlinks, anchor text distribution, 그리고 toxic links that could be harming your SEO. 

This data helps you understand which pages are supported by authoritative links and which are not, giving you a clear picture of how backlinks are impacting performance.

If a page has few or low-quality backlinks, you can merge it with a stronger page, refresh it to earn new links, 또는 remove it if it adds little value. 

Conversely, pages with strong backlinks but declining performance might just need a content update rather than pruning, ensuring you don’t lose valuable link equity.

By reviewing backlink data before pruning, you can make informed decisions that protect your site’s authority, maintain traffic, and maximize SEO benefits.

Label Your Content

Once you’ve collected performance data, backlinks, and technical insights, the next step is to organize your content for easier decision-making. 

Using labels helps you quickly understand why a page is underperforming and what action it needs. A practical approach is to create a spreadsheet and assign the URL a label. 

Here are some useful labels to consider:

• Technical issue – Pages flagged in your site audit for issues like slow load times, no-index tags, or mobile-unfriendly design.
  
• Outdated – Pages with old, inaccurate, or irrelevant information that no longer serves searchers.
  
• Thin content – Low-quality pages that don’t explore a topic in depth or fail to satisfy user intent.
  
• Intent mismatch – Pages that don’t match what searchers are looking for or target the wrong keywords.
  
• Duplicate content – Pages that are identical or too similar to other pages on your site. Even if duplicates are flagged in your technical audit, tagging them separately helps with prioritization.
  
• Needs backlinks – Pages with few or no backlinks, making it hard for them to rank despite good content.
  

Some pages may require multiple labels depending on the issues discovered. For example, a thin, outdated page with no backlinks could be tagged with all three labels.

By clearly labeling your pages in a spreadsheet, content management tool, or directly in your SEO platform, you create a visual roadmap of what needs pruning, updating, or merging.

Start Working on the Content

Once your content is labeled and organized, it’s time to take action. You can approach this in three ways: refresh, consolidate, or remove—depending on the issues identified.

1. Refresh Content

Pages that are outdated, thin, or have intent mismatches often just need an update to regain performance. Refreshing can include:

• Updating outdated stats, links, or references
  
• Expanding thin content to provide comprehensive coverage of the topic
  
• Rewriting sections to better match searcher intent or target keywords
  

Tools like GetGenie can make refreshing content easier and faster. Use its AI-powered insights to optimize existing pages, add new sections, improve readability, and ensure your content aligns with both SEO and audience needs.

2. Consolidate Content

Sometimes multiple pages cover the same topic, leading to duplicate content or internal competition. In these cases, consolidating pages can help:

• Merge similar pages into a single, authoritative page
  
• Redirect old URLs to the consolidated page to preserve backlinks and traffic
  
• Combine insights from thin or overlapping pages to create a stronger, more comprehensive resource
  

Consolidation reduces keyword cannibalization and improves your site’s authority on a topic.

3. Remove Content

Pages that are beyond saving or no longer relevant should be removed. This typically applies to content labeled as irrelevant, outdated, with no chance of update, or extremely low-quality thin content. When removing pages:

• Use proper 301 redirects if there are backlinks pointing to the removed page
  
• Consider no-indexing if the page has some value but doesn’t fit your strategy
  
• Monitor the impact after removal to ensure it doesn’t negatively affect traffic
  

By following this Refresh → Consolidate → Remove workflow, you systematically improve your site’s quality, strengthen SEO, and ensure that every page contributes to your overall strategy. 

Assess the Impact of Pruning

After pruning content, it’s important to track how these changes affect your site’s performance. Measuring the impact ensures that removing, consolidating, or refreshing pages actually improves traffic, rankings, and engagement.

구글 서치 콘솔(GSC) is a reliable tool to check the performance of individual pages. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open GSC and go to the “Performance” report.
   
2. 클릭 “Pages” to view a list of all your URLs.
   
3. Select a page you pruned, refreshed, or consolidated.
   
4. Review key metrics like:
   
   • 클릭 – How many visitors came to that page
     
   • 인상 – How often it appeared in search results
     
   • 평균 위치 – Where it ranks for relevant queries
     
   • CTR (Click-Through Rate) – How well it attracts clicks from search results
     
5. Check the queries driving traffic to understand which keywords are performing well or need further optimization.
   

By monitoring pages individually, you can see exactly which pruning actions helped and which pages may need additional updates. This hands-on approach gives you a clear picture of your site’s post-pruning health and helps refine future strategies.

마지막 생각들

Content pruning is more than housekeeping—it’s a way to strengthen your site’s authority and focus on what truly matters. Think of it as optimizing your website’s signal-to-noise ratio: the less clutter, the more search engines and users notice your best content.

A few practical considerations:

• Quality over quantity: Don’t aim to have the most pages; aim to have the most valuable ones.
• Monitor continuously: Even after pruning, keep an eye on performance trends to catch new opportunities or issues early.
• Leverage data for decisions: Insights from tools like GetGenie or GSC aren’t just for audits—they can guide strategy, topic focus, and future content creation.
• Strategic pruning is an investment: Every page you update, merge, or remove should contribute to long-term growth, not just short-term gains.

When done thoughtfully, pruning is a powerful way to boost rankings, improve user experience, and reinforce your brand’s authority, all without adding extra pages or effort.