Redirect after deleting posts?

[interforo]

back in april I have deleted lots of posts/threads

Now I see a huge traffic drop

Should I redirect pages that give 404?

 

[Chromaniac]

deleting posts shouldn't break links in most cases. deleting threads would definitely.

this is a very good addon to monitor dead links and redirect them from xenforo backend.

Custom 404 Page by Siropu

May 24, 2019

Customize your 404 error page, keep track of missing URLs and redirect them to new pages.

• Siropu
• 404 error 404 not found 404 redirect
• Add-ons [2.x]

 

[Suzanne O]

How many members have you got on the site?
I'd ask them via a poll on what they want on the site.

 

[Mr Lucky]

back in april I have deleted lots of posts/threads

Now I see a huge traffic drop

Should I redirect pages that give 404?

If you deleted them for the reason that they were not useful for SEO, ie thin content, badly written, duplicates then it should actually help with organic traffic. But if there were external links to those threads then you don't want to waste that, so redirect would be good. If there are internal links than change them rather than redirect.

 

[interforo]

If you deleted them for the reason that they were not useful for SEO, ie thin content, badly written, duplicates then it should actually help with organic traffic. But if there were external links to those threads then you don't want to waste that, so redirect would be good. If there are internal links than change them rather than redirect.

I actually deleted old users not active anymore and inadvertently deleted also their posts/threads

 

[Chromaniac]

right. monitor dead links using something like the addon above and you would get an idea if you accidentally deleted high traffic pages of your website. google is quite fast at updating their index removing links no longer available so search results would be updated sooner than later. if you are getting a lot of hits from third party sites on dead pages, fixing them makes a lot of sense.

 

[interforo]

right. monitor dead links using something like the addon above and you would get an idea if you accidentally deleted high traffic pages of your website. google is quite fast at updating their index removing links no longer available so search results would be updated sooner than later. if you are getting a lot of hits from third party sites on dead pages, fixing them makes a lot of sense.

The fact is I have lost almost 60% in traffic and revenues and I can’t figure out exactly

 

[Mr Lucky]

The fact is I have lost almost 60% in traffic and revenues and I can’t figure out exactly

It may have nothing to do with the posts you deleted. It's unlikely you would have deleted good threads. Could just be a Google update. We are all at their mercy.

 

[Chromaniac]

that is true. google released their june spam update last week. might be affecting forums.

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[interforo]

How can I understand if I was penalized?
I really had a huge drop in traffic

 

[Mr Lucky]

How can I understand if I was penalized?
I really had a huge drop in traffic

Now you are getting into the dark realms of questioning the ways of Google.

There are so-called manual penalties that can be applied when you do something they consider to be unnatural or spammy like keyword stuffing, link farms or cloaking in an attempt to manipulate search results.

People also use the word "penalty" to just mean getting lower rankings due to poor quality, thin content, duplicate content and possibly lots of 404 errors although I know Google have said 404 per se are not going penalise a whole site.

Such big drops as you experience can easily happen due to a google update that just looks at things differently. Sad but true. One day they may hate forums, another day they like them.

Unless you have all the tools and knowledge to do an in depth audit, it may be best to get an expert.