Content Pruning Case Study: CNET search data suggests it works.

Last week, I covered CNET's much-debated decision to delete thousands of articles in an attempt to boost their Google search rankings.

Now data around the effect indicates that might suggest the strategy paid off. Let's revisit CNET's actions as content pruning case study and dive into the data.

CNET's Organic Traffic Surges by 29%

Earlier today I saw a Linkedin postfrom SEO Expert Fery Kaszoni, where he highlighted what he found could be an indication that CNET's content pruning strategy is working.

Kaszoni used SEMRush to check the data, and I initially verified this by looking into Ahref and the estimated organic traffic to CNET.

Based on the data from Ahrefs, it's clear there's been a change in CNET's organic traffic pattern. For years, they saw a steady decline, but something shifted in June. Their organic traffic started to incline.

An increase of 29%!

From a low point of 19 million estimated monthly visits back on 11 June 2023 and now to a level of around 24,5 million visits here 2 months later in August.

I am not sure about the SEMRush data set that Kaszoni draws upon, but the "turnaround" of the CNET traffic curve coincides with Ahref updating and adding a massive amount of keywords to its databases.

Keyword Data Update
We updated search volume estimations for ~16.6B keywords. More than 20M new keywords have been added to the Keywords Explorer database. We now have more than 23B total keywords. More than 650M keywords are used to estimate the traffic in Site Explorer. Source: Ahref

So is this a testament to the success of content pruning or just coincidence?

Did Content Pruning Contribute to CNET's Organic Traffic Surge?

Content pruning involves the strategic removal of outdated or irrelevant content from a website. This practice aims to improve the overall quality and relevance of the website's content.

While it's tempting to instantly credit content pruning for the recent upswing in CNET's organic traffic, it's important to stress that correlation doesn’t always mean causation.

Other factors could have contributed.

Asking my dear AI-assisting SEO friend what could be other reasons for such an increase it suggested:

• Seasonal Trends: Tech industries see varying traffic depending on launches, announcements, or global events.
• New Content Strategy: CNET might have rolled out a revamped content approach with content pruning.
• Technical SEO Updates: Site speed, mobile optimization, and improved user experience can boost rankings and traffic.
• Backlinking Strategies: Perhaps CNET acquired valuable backlinks during this period.

In my opinion, none of these suggestions have the potential to generate a significant boost in performance for a website of this magnitude.

Maybe a bigger Google algorithm update?

But looking at some of the direct competitors, that might have seen similar increases if it was just the Ahref database-update or a Google algorithm update that created the turn-around, I do not see the same pattern, indicating that it's neither of these creating the increase.

Looking a bit deeper into the different SEO experts chipping in in the comments of Kaszoni's Linkedin post, I saw that Scott Rogers-Jones actually had tried to dig a bit deeper into the data.

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He highlights that CNET got a lot of new traffic due to "Prime Day" and the launch of Threads, where they apparently had great ranking traffic.

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But these search terms (based on Roger-Jones screenshot) only account for around 60.000 monthly visits. An even if we imagine many more of these, its still so very little compared to the 5 million monthly visits increase!

So the best explanation that I currently have (and please challenge this with data if you have) is that content pruning works.

If I look a bit deeper into the data from Ahref - without doing a full audit - it looks like CNET sees an increase in traffic for a lot of keywords in the period.

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But to be fair, a lot of keywords have also seen a decline. And as Ahrefs tracks 14,411,331 keywords they believe CNET has some sort of ranking on, a real analysis requires lots of effort!

So how would we be sure that CNET is a master case example arguing for content pruning in a SEO context?

How to Uncover Evidence of Content Pruning's Impact on Organic Traffic

Since these initial Ahref and SEMRush data more indicate that content pruning might work, let's review 4 different perspectives on why content pruning, in theory, would work, and how we then could find evidence of this in the data.

The challenge is, that many of these would require access to CNET inside data (or real Google data):

Improves Crawl Efficiency

• SEO Rationale: Search engines have a crawl budget for every website, which is the number of pages they'll crawl in a given timeframe. By removing irrelevant or low-quality pages, you ensure that search engines spend more of their crawl budget on your valuable pages.
• Evidence: After a content pruning exercise, you could monitor server logs to check the frequency and depth of search engine crawls. A more focused crawl on relevant pages, or a change in the frequency of search engine bot visits, could suggest improved crawl efficiency.

Enhances User Experience

• SEO Rationale: Dead ends, outdated information, or irrelevant content can frustrate users. By removing or updating such content, you improve user experience, potentially leading to longer session durations and lower bounce rates.
• Evidence: Monitoring user engagement metrics like bounce rate, average session duration, and pages per session before and after the pruning can provide insights. Improved metrics post-pruning would indicate a better user experience.

Boosts Site Authority

• SEO Rationale: Every page on your site contributes to your overall domain's perceived quality. Removing low-quality content can, therefore, enhance the perceived authority and trustworthiness of the entire domain.
• Evidence: Check for changes in the site's overall organic search visibility, rankings for high-value keywords, or referral traffic from authoritative sites. An uptick in these metrics could indicate an increase in site authority.

Optimizes Internal Linking

• SEO Rationale: By removing underperforming content, you have a clearer content structure. This allows for more strategic internal linking, directing link equity to the most important pages and improving their search visibility.
• Evidence: Use tools like Google Search Console or third-party tools to monitor the internal links and their associated performance. An increase in impressions, clicks, or improved rankings for pages that have been strategically internally linked post-pruning could be evidence of the effectiveness of the optimized internal linking.

Content Pruning and the CNET case: A Verdict?

Based on the data from Ahrefs, one thing is clear – CNET’s traffic saw an uptick after their controversial pruning. Almost 30%!

However, it's crucial to understand that the world of SEO isn't just black and white. While their traffic increased, was this solely due to content pruning?

Possibly, but not definitively.

It is also interesting to note that while Google insists that old content isn't necessarily bad content, it might be the case that bad content that just adds to your index weight might be.

If old content isn't bringing value and might potentially be hampering site performance, does it really make sense to keep it?

But as with all SEO tactics, the real testament will be its long-term impact and sustainability. We will keep our eyes on the CNET content pruning case.

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