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              CNET Deletes Thousands of Old Articles to Juice SEO

   Adam Engst

   At Gizmodo, [1]Thomas Germain writes:

     Tech news website CNET has deleted thousands of old articles over
     the past few months in a bid to improve its performance in Google
     Search results, Gizmodo has learned.

     Archived copies of CNET's author pages show the company deleted
     small batches of articles prior to the second half of July, but then
     the pace increased. Thousands of articles disappeared in recent
     weeks. A CNET representative confirmed that the company was culling
     stories but declined to share exactly how many it has taken down.

   CNET claims that removing articles helps with search engine
   optimization (SEO), even though [2]Google explicitly advises against
   it. Who to believe? Google's goal is to produce the 'best' search
   results, whereas SEO experts aim to get their content into the top
   spots in search results by any means possible. Though I'm dubious of
   most SEO claims based on my experience with the TidBITS and Take
   Control sites over decades, it's conceivable that SEO experts have
   discovered a hack that works'until Google tweaks its algorithms in
   response. Regardless, I disapprove of deleting legitimate content
   because there's no predicting what utility it could provide to the
   future; at least CNET says it's sending deleted stories to the Internet
   Archive. CNET writers might want to set up accounts with Authory (see
   '[3]Authory Provides Writers a Permanent Record of Their Articles,' 24
   March 2023).

   [4]Read original article

References

   1. https://gizmodo.com/cnet-deletes-thousands-old-articles-google-search-seo-1850721475
   2. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dont-delete-older-helpful-content-35846.html
   3. https://tidbits.com/2023/03/24/authory-provides-writers-a-permanent-record-of-their-articles/
   4. https://gizmodo.com/cnet-deletes-thousands-old-articles-google-search-seo-1850721475

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