I began writing about computers, the internet and the world wide web several years ago. I had some wild schemes about how to make money via web sites, and one of the most basic concepts in my mind was that I had to provide good content to get people to come to the site. I loved to write anyway, so needing to create content was not a problem. Interestingly, this is the task that many (if not most) webmasters hate - writing the content. Yet it's why web sites exist - information and content.
Thus, I wrote hundreds and hundreds (and eventually thousands) of articles intended to help people with their internet and computer needs. The wild schemes settled down and eventually faded away, but the love of writing and creating useful articles has continued strongly in the meantime. Thus, our web site evolved from an attempt to make some money to a vast collection of articles.
I wrote article after article, and after a while went back and edited older articles. After all, over time the technology changes, tools change and even the concepts of the internet changes. That's just the way it is, and writing about this world known as the web is a never-ending task. It doesn't end because it's different every single day.
As the web site evolved, a new problem began to surface: what to do with the articles (and the associated web pages) that were obsolete? This was a minor problem for me until I changed my entire viewpoint on money-making schemes. At that time, I had to rework, change or eliminate about fifty pages all at once. This forced me to confront a critical issue: what should I do with the pages which are obsolete?
You see, it's important to remember how many things can link to a page.
It's important to keep this in mind as your site evolves and grows. Old pages have value because of links to them. If you just delete them, you create errors which, at the least, frustrates your visitors and perhaps makes them surf somewhere else.
Rewrite the article - If the subject is still valid but the article is outdated, then perhaps you can just rewrite or rework it to be more up-to-date. This is the ideal way to maintain older pages - they obviously were valuable and, with some work, could remain valuable.
Salvage the article - If you cannot rework it then perhaps you can write a new article on a similar subject. You can change just about everything except the URL (the file name and file type) without concern. It is superior to maintain older file names, even with brand new completely different subject matter, than to just delete them.
Redirect the page - Set up a redirect to a new page if you must, for whatever reason, delete a file (or change it's name). This will recapture visitors that might otherwise be lost.
Custom 404 error page - Be sure and put up a custom 404 error page. This way, even if you forget to redirect your readers (or if someone mistypes a URL), you will not lose the traffic.
Delete old pages - Never delete an old page. You will just annoy your visitors by giving them 404 errors unnecessarily.
Change the file type without a redirect - If you change the file type (say from .htm to .asp), be sure and leave a redirect on the old file name/type combination to the new one. Otherwise, you've just lost a few visitors.
Change directory names without redirection - If you change a directory name (or move it or whatever), be sure to leave a redirect on the whole directory to the new one. Or, alternatively, redirect each individual file. Never just change the name - you will lose visitors.
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Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.