What principles and considerations should be followed when cleaning up low-quality content?

When cleaning up low-quality content on a website, clear principles and considerations must be followed to balance content quality, user experience, and search engine performance. ### Core Principles 1. **Clear Quality Standards**: Typically based on information accuracy, originality, and in-depth value; avoid retaining duplicate, outdated, or patched-together content. 2. **User Value Orientation**: Prioritize deleting content that fails to meet user search intent (e.g., "placeholder pages" with no substantive information, keyword-stuffed text). 3. **Data-Driven Decision-Making**: Use traffic, bounce rate, and conversion data to identify low-value pages instead of relying solely on subjective judgment. ### Considerations - **Avoid Over-Deletion**: For low-quality content with historical indexing or external links, consider optimization rather than direct deletion; use 301 redirects to relevant high-quality pages when necessary. - **Phased Processing**: First clean up obviously non-compliant content (e.g., plagiarism, false information), then gradually optimize borderline low-quality pages to reduce the impact on website authority. - **Monitor Subsequent Impact**: After cleanup, track metrics such as core keyword rankings and user dwell time, and adjust strategies promptly. It is recommended to regularly evaluate page quality using content audit tools and continuously optimize content structure based on user feedback to improve the overall health of the content ecosystem.