Aug 10, 2023 13:05:00

CNET mass deletes old articles to improve Google search rankings, while Google argues that old content is okay

The news site 'CNET' is proceeding with bold reforms, such as

quickly incorporating AI into article creation and implementing large-scale personnel reductions after introducing AI. Newly, it became clear that CNET is deleting a large number of old articles to improve the display ranking in Google search. On the other hand, Google argues that 'deleting old articles does not affect search rankings.'

FAQ on CNET Content Pruning - Aug 2023 - DocumentCloud
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23903730-faq-on-cnet-content-pruning-aug-2023

CNET Deletes Thousands of Old Articles to Game Google Search
https://gizmodo.com/cnet-deletes-thousands-old-articles-google-search-seo-1850721475

CNET is a news site established in 1994, and a huge number of articles are published. However, it has become clear that thousands of old articles have been deleted since the beginning of 2023.

According to an internal document shared by CNET, the deletion of the article is to let Google know that ``CNET has a lot of fresh information and is worthy of being displayed higher than other companies' sites in Google search results.'' It is said that it is being implemented. It is also revealed that the articles to be deleted are selected with reference to parameters such as 'publication year', 'access count', 'article length', and 'Google crawl frequency'.

While CNET is removing articles to improve its ranking in Google searches, Google says, ``Do you think Google doesn't like old content and is deleting content? That's not true! We do not recommend removing old content. Old content may still be useful.' He argued that the presence of old content does not affect search rankings. I'm here.

Are you deleting content from your site because you somehow believe Google doesn't like 'old' content? That's not a thing! Our guidance doesn't encourage this. Older content can still be helpful, too. Learn more about creating helpful content:

https://t.co/NaRQqb1SQx

—Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) August 8, 2023

However, Google's official documentation on crawling clearly states that ``There is a limit to the amount of time Googlebot can crawl a single site. This can lead to crawling blockages. For this reason, CNET's article deletion correspondence may match the purpose of aiming for the top of Google search.

In addition, CNET archives deleted articles on the Wayback Machine using the API provided by Internet Archive.