Hello,
I own a news website that is relatively new, launched around 2022. The content published on the website is commissioned from content writers, and the niche is technology, with a focus on mobile phones. Given how much SEO changes from year to year, I would like to understand the SEO implications for a news website in the following situations:
If multiple articles about rumors and leaks of a mobile phone (e.g., iPhone 16) are published before its official launch, will the older articles be affected by HCU/spam content updates? Would it be advisable, after the phone is released and a comprehensive article covering all details is published, to apply a 301 redirect from the older articles to this complete and useful article?
I also have several similar cases, such as articles about Black Friday 2024 campaigns, which are now irrelevant. I'm concerned that Google might consider them useless and negatively impact my site through HCU.
Our website was originally launched five years ago but was deleted and rebuilt in 2022. We discovered several 404 pages that still have significant authority—these include image URLs, category pages, and some important articles. What would you recommend doing in this case? For instance, if an image of an iPhone 12 was deleted but had authority, would it be helpful to redirect it to an article primarily discussing this phone? I'm considering this approach instead of leaving high-authority pages as 404.
We do not index all tags in Google, only the important ones like site.com/tag/Samsung or site.com/tag/apple. Besides using these tags normally in articles, I am considering linking them automatically using Link Whisper (auto-linking), so that whenever "Apple" is mentioned in an article, it links directly to the Apple tag page. Additionally, the tag page would include informational content like "Who is Apple, history, and other details."
What other insights and recommendations would you offer for this type of website? I assume that SEO in 2025 is evolving, and we don't even know how relevant these types of websites will be in the future, especially since this is a national tech website in Romania—a competitive niche.
