7th April 2026
Many websites publish blog content in the hope that it will increase their visibility in search results. The logic seems simple: more articles should mean more chances to appear.
Over time, however, many websites accumulate a large number of blog posts that receive little traffic, cover topics only partially or are no longer closely aligned with the services the business provides.
When reviewing the ALT blog, we found that a large proportion of articles were contributing very little to the site’s visibility in search. This led us to review the blog more closely and change how the content was organised and maintained.
The sections below outline what we found and what happened after those changes were made.
Over the years, the ALT blog had grown to nearly 400 articles. Like many websites that publish regularly, content had accumulated gradually rather than as part of a structured plan.
At the same time, the rest of the site contained only around 50 to 60 service and landing pages. This created a large imbalance between informational blog content and the core pages that actually describe the services we provide. The blog exists to support our expertise and bring relevant traffic to the site, not to function as a large publishing platform.
When we reviewed performance data, it became clear that a significant proportion of the blog content was providing little value. Many articles had:
Because of this, we carried out a full content audit of the blog. The goal was to identify which articles were genuinely useful and which were adding little value to the site’s overall SEO performance. From there, we could decide whether each article should be improved, consolidated with another page or removed entirely.
After the audit, we carried out a large-scale content pruning exercise. The blog was reduced from nearly 400 articles to around 25 higher quality posts that were still relevant to the services and expertise of the business.
This was intentionally aggressive. The goal was not incremental improvement, but to remove a large backlog of content that had accumulated over several years.
Most removals took place over a two-to-three week period in mid-to-late December 2025. Articles were prioritised for removal if they met one or more of the following criteria:
Most pages were allowed to return a 404 status code , and this was intentional. In many cases the content was outdated, irrelevant to the current site or covered topics that no longer existed elsewhere on the website. Redirecting these pages would have sent users and search engines to pages that were not really related.
It is common advice to redirect removed pages wherever possible. However, redirects should only be used when there is a genuinely relevant replacement page. Redirecting large numbers of unrelated URLs can create confusing signals for search engines and lead to poor user experience.
For example, redirecting hundreds of unrelated blog posts to the homepage or to loosely related pages can effectively create soft 404s, where the destination does not actually satisfy the original intent of the page.
Instead, most removed articles were allowed to return a 404 response so search engines could clearly understand that those pages no longer exist.
A smaller number of URLs were redirected to other blog posts where the topic was already covered more comprehensively. In these cases the redirect made sense because the destination page genuinely replaced the original article. This meant redirects were only used where they genuinely made sense.
Shortly after the pruning exercise, several articles that had not been updated began receiving impressions in Google Search Console when previously they had not appeared for any queries.
Looking at all URLs within /blog/, impressions increased from 55,300 in November to December to 164,000 in January to February, representing a 196% increase. During the same period, the average position improved from 55.3 to 38.3.
However, these numbers should be interpreted carefully.
Impressions are an early visibility signal, not a measure of traffic or business impact. They indicate that pages are appearing in search results more often, but do not necessarily mean users are clicking them.
The time window is relatively short. Search performance can fluctuate significantly over periods of a few weeks, and ranking improvements often take longer to stabilise.
Multiple changes happened during this period. Some existing articles were updated and a small number of new posts were published, so the improvements cannot be attributed solely to this project.
Despite these limitations, the timing suggests that removing a large amount of low value content may have helped strengthen the visibility of the remaining articles. Several pages that had not been modified began receiving impressions soon after the clean-up, which may indicate that the overall structure and quality signals of the blog improved once weaker pages were removed.
There are several possible reasons why removing a large number of low performing articles may have improved the visibility of the remaining pages.
Clearer topical focus. After the cleanup, the remaining articles were more closely aligned with the services ALT actually provides. This may have helped search engines better understand what the site is about and where its expertise lies.
Less competition between similar pages. Some removed articles covered overlapping topics or addressed them only partially. When multiple weak pages exist around a similar subject, search engines may struggle to determine which one should rank. Removing weaker pages can make the stronger page the clear candidate.
Stronger overall content quality. Once thin, outdated or irrelevant articles were removed, the remaining blog consisted almost entirely of higher quality pages. This may have improved how the blog section is interpreted overall.
It is difficult to isolate the exact mechanism behind the change. However, the fact that several unchanged articles began receiving impressions shortly after the pruning suggests that removing weaker pages may have helped the remaining content appear more clearly in search results.
Another change focused on improving the coverage of existing blog articles. Rather than publishing large amounts of new content, the goal was to make sure key articles fully covered the topics they targeted and answered the questions users commonly search for.
One way this was approached was by reviewing the “People Also Ask” (PAA) questions that appear in Google for a given topic and checking whether existing articles answered them clearly.
For example, this article was published in January 2026:
/blog/xml-sitemaps-ultimate-guide/When searching for “XML sitemaps” on Google, the following PAA questions appeared:
The article already explained what an XML sitemap is, but several of the other questions were not directly addressed. Based on this, additional sections were added to the article covering:
A similar process was applied to several other blog posts. For each article, common related questions were identified and the content was expanded to ensure those questions were answered clearly within the page.
Looking at impressions in the 14 days after these updates compared with the 14 days before, several articles saw notable increases in visibility:
These numbers should be interpreted cautiously. Impressions do not represent traffic or business impact. Instead, they just indicate that pages are appearing in search results more frequently. This can happen for many reasons, including small ranking changes across a wider range of queries.
However, impressions can sometimes act as an early indicator of increased visibility, particularly when previously low performing pages begin appearing for a wider range of searches.
Expanding articles to answer related questions may improve visibility for several reasons:
Broader search intent coverage. Answering common questions helps ensure the article satisfies a wider range of searches related to the topic.
More opportunities to rank for query variations. Each additional section can target variations of the main topic that users search for.
More comprehensive content overall. Expanding articles can make them more competitive against other pages ranking for the same topic.
Together, these changes likely helped the articles appear for a broader range of searches, which helps explain the increase in impressions.
A common response to weak SEO performance is to publish more content. While new articles can help expand a site’s visibility, simply increasing volume does not guarantee better results.
Over time, many websites accumulate large numbers of blog posts that receive little traffic, overlap with other pages or only partially cover the topic they target. When this happens, the issue is often not a lack of content, but the quality and focus of what already exists.
Improving SEO performance in these situations usually involves three types of changes:
This kind of work often makes a website clearer and more useful rather than simply making it bigger. Instead of maintaining a large archive of low performing pages, the focus shifts to making the most important content as strong and relevant as possible.
For many websites, this kind of optimisation is overlooked. Publishing new content is often easier than reviewing and improving what already exists. However, as this example shows, revisiting existing pages and removing weaker ones can sometimes have a greater impact than simply adding more articles. Periodically reviewing and improving existing content may be one of the most effective SEO activities for smaller websites in particular.
Craig Murphy is the founder and Managing Director of ALT Agency. He has worked in digital marketing and web development since the early days of the commercial internet, with a focus on growing businesses online. Craig is open about being autistic and how it shapes his approach to problem-solving, data and business leadership. Alongside agency work, he also runs a private investment business supporting early-stage entrepreneurs.
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