Does deleting collections impact SEO and require redirection?

[planetjuniorseo]

Hi!

I have like 80 collections which I want to remove from google as they were creating duplicate content and impacting other collections. They don't get enough traffic and some of them are not even indexed.

1) Should I bother to redirect them?

2) If I make them unavailable, would that complete my object and google won't find them anymore (they will also be removed from sitemap) and will only consider other collections which I want to rank?

3)Does making it unavailable impact SEO?

It would be great if anyone would answer questions in detail following the question number!

[claricelin · Accepted solution]

Hi @planetjuniorseo,

1) if those 80 collections don't get enough traffic and some of them are not even indexed on Google in the first place, then that shouldn't be an issue if you don't set up any redirects.

2) if you make those 80 unavailable, only the new collections and other store pages will be indexed and discoverable on Google after you submit the new sitemap (after deleting the 80 collections)

3)Does making it unavailable impact SEO?

No, in your circumstances, there will be minimal to no impact if nobody has access to those links and Google has not even indexed them in the first place.

The only case where making it unavailable would affect SEO is when those 80 collections have been attracting huge volumes of traffic and have been considered to contribute to your Google ranking for the store. The sudden removal would then affect your entire site structure and how Google perceives your site and thus ranking.

Final note, before deleting those 80 collections without redirects, do make sure you have no other internal site links linking to those pages. So it wouldn't result in an error page.

If you have been linking to the collections from other pages (that still continue to exist), then I would highly recommend to set up the redirects to avoid any broken links on your site, regardless if you were getting any traffic in the first place.

Cheers,

Clarice