An old page can still answer a customer's question. A recently published one can already be wrong. Reviewing website content means deciding whether it remains accurate and useful, rather than clearing out everything published before an arbitrary date.
Google's guidance on helpful content explicitly rejects the idea that removing lots of older content to make a website seem fresh will improve rankings. The starting point is what visitors need, not how much material you can delete.
Start with purpose, then look at the evidence
Choose a manageable section of the website, including its supporting articles and downloads. For each page, establish who it serves and what it helps them do. The Defence Service Manual's content audit guidance provides a useful approach: select a scope, gather evidence and assess usefulness before recommending changes.
Check accuracy with the person responsible for the subject. Look at usage, customer questions and links from other websites, rather than treating the publication date as a verdict. For seasonal content, include the relevant season in your assessment.
Low traffic is a reason to investigate, not an automatic instruction to delete. Check whether sales or support staff rely on the page and whether customers can find it. Roled's guide to interpreting website reports explains why visitor numbers need this wider context.
Give each page a clear decision
Keep it when it remains accurate, useful and appropriately placed. There is no need to rewrite a sound page just to show activity. Record that it has been reviewed, without presenting unchanged material as newly published.
Update it when the purpose still matters but the information needs work. Identify the actual changes required, such as correcting service details, replacing an obsolete download or answering a question the page currently leaves unresolved. A new date alone does not make the content current.
Merge it when several pages serve substantially the same need and one well-structured page would make the answer clearer. Preserve useful details rather than simply joining the text together. Pages covering the same broad topic may still deserve separate homes when they help different audiences or tasks.
Remove it when it no longer serves a useful purpose and neither updating it nor retaining it as a historical record is justified. Agree this with the content owner. Taking a page off the public website and permanently deleting its stored record are separate decisions.
Separate historical records from current advice
Some content matters because it records what happened at a particular time. That is different from guidance people are expected to follow today. An archive can be a deliberate outcome, rather than a holding area for decisions nobody wants to make.
GOV.UK's guidance on retiring content distinguishes removing a page from retaining it with a notice that it is no longer current. For a company website, that distinction can help preserve useful history without presenting it as current advice.
Where material is worth retaining, preserve its original date, explain its status prominently and link to current information where available. Make the status clear in retained downloads too, since readers may reach them without seeing the surrounding page. Check that your own website search does not present superseded instructions as current answers.
Decide where old links should lead
Before merging or removing a page, agree what happens when somebody opens its old address. Where the content has genuinely moved or been combined, a permanent redirect can automatically take visitors to the relevant replacement.
Google's guidance on changing page addresses warns against sending unrelated old pages to the homepage. A redirect needs a relevant destination, not merely somewhere that avoids an error screen. An existing link from another website is a reason to plan carefully, not to preserve misleading content indefinitely.
When there is no equivalent replacement, provide a helpful message explaining that the page is unavailable, with navigation or search. Ask your website maintainer to ensure the address also returns the correct technical response, normally 404 or 410. Google's documentation on these responses explains how they signal that content is unavailable and allow it to be removed from search results over time.
Update links you control, including menus, other articles and live campaigns. Check linked downloads separately, then open the old addresses to confirm they show the intended replacement or removal message.
Turn the review into work somebody owns
For each page, record its address, the decision, the reason and a named owner. Where relevant, add the replacement address, approval needed and target completion date. Keep proposed changes distinct from those actually published and checked.
Prioritise information that could mislead customers about prices, availability or what to do next before cosmetic rewrites. For content that stays, agree a review date and identify changes that should trigger an earlier check, such as revised services or pricing.
Begin with one group of pages and finish the decisions, approvals and link checks before expanding the review. A smaller completed batch is more useful than a site-wide inventory nobody has agreed to act on.
