Yes! Delete them. Less is more. Quality rating is applied to the entire website. If a significant section of a website is deemed to be low quality it impacts the entire website. There's no harm in having 404s, just make sure you also remove all internal links as linking to 404s is also a negative signal.

@lewis thanks for the advice.

There's no harm in having 404s

Better to return 410, if they're permanently gone.

Because I'm seeing articles that Google warns of deleting old pages.

Really? More malinformation IMHO.

BTW, in your logs expect to see G visiting those old pages for possibly years to come.

in your logs expect to see G visiting those old pages for possibly years to come

That's one advantage of returning a 410. Unlike some search engines, G does seem to know the difference between 410 and 404; if they see that you intentionally removed a page, they'll let up on requests pretty soon.

:: detour to raw logs ::

In the past year-and-a-half I find no Google 410s at all on my main site (just one intentionally removed page, gone since 2020). They do still periodically request certain pages--the same ones, over and over--from my personal site. Perhaps they live in hope that some day I will reinstate the page-for-page redirects that I retained for five or six years after splitting the site.

if they see that you intentionally removed a page, they'll let up on requests pretty soon

...unless there's a backlink to it from someone who never checks their links.

Aye. But if G### keeps trying someone else’s links that lead to a 410 on your site--or, for that matter, to any non-200 response--you’d think that it would eventually weigh against the other site, being evidence of slapdash maintenance or worse.

:: uneasily wondering how many of the links I’ve used over the past ten years are still valid ::

don't think too much about it. Do what is logical - there is a page you don't want to have anymore? Delete it, don't think about SEO, do what is best for your users and you.

do what is best for your users

Which in this case means don't just remove pages: make sure that missing-page/mistyped requests return a page with a relevant message for the user.

Since the beginning of the web (for me, 1996) when a page is "dead" or "no longer useful" I have just deleted it and removed any links to that content. 404 works just fine for me.

Of course 410 is a bit more polite and direct, but maintaining an ever growing list of defunct URLs for redirection until the End Of Time is a royal PITA. Have other things to do.

Why don't you make the pages noindex? At the moment I'm also facing the same dilemma, I have about 400 pages that have absolutely useless content, which does not make much sense to improve. Articles made according to the requirements of 2014 and I don't know what to do with them...

Why don't you make the pages noindex?

Do you really want search engines using up their crawl budget on “useless” pages, when you could simply 410 them?

...and I don't know what to do with them...

Make them disappear! Even if noindex is applied the bot still has to hit the page to read that ... and that's 400 OTHER pages that could have been indexed!

(Don't know how crawl budgets are set ... number of files or size of content ... but anything that SLIMS DOWN is healthier than any useless BLOAT!)

I think the old page don't any ranking in SERP. The old page don't have traffic. No user will view those pages.
So we only need considering juice flow and crawl bot.
How about 301 redirect all useless old page to homepage?

Hi Lori_Kain and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

How about 301 redirect all useless old page to homepage?

That would still waste your site's crawl budget and server resources, make visitors think your site is broken and give you soft 404s in Google. Don't give visitors something they did not ask for.

Thank u~ So which one is the best solution for useless old pages?

@Lori - If you read the previous posts, starting from the original post that opened this thread, you will see the recommendation to serve up a 410 server response for pages you no longer wish to keep, and why. That tells Google that the page is gone. Eventually they will quit requesting that page. The same way you serve up a 404 page, you can serve up a 410.

The same way you serve up a 404 page, you can serve up a 410.

Worth stressing, though: Every error comes with its own default server message, which can be overridden with a custom page. Most people already have their own custom 404 page (I know of one long-established site that doesn’t, and oh does it make them look low-budget). If you are sending a 410 response you need to make a custom 410 page so the human visitor knows they didn’t make a mistake; the page they requested used to exist on the site, but isn’t there any more. Apache’s default 410 message is a bit scary and unhelpful.

On some sites you might be able to use the same error document for both 404 and 410, but think of what’s best for your human user. In some cases it’s useful to make separate pages for specific directories.

Ok, thank u~ got it.

What I am doiing in such case is: if I can't improve page I delete. For example if You can add fresh voucers and coupon codes then do it, Your page is updated and has no value. In opposite case remove it.

@cooler
yes. because these expired voucher pages piled up my blog. maybe it's time to delete them. Is it okay to delete them at once or batch by batch.