SEO

Sounds like a well devised strategy Rik. Perhaps you could do some further tweaking to make it even more productive.

If a thread is producing even a trickle of traffic, it can help build a very productive long tail:
What is the Search Long Tail? - vBulletin SEO Forums

Granted I believe you are setting a threshold that very few views occurred, and no recent views. This would *help* ensure that none of the threads you delete actually have the ability to deliver traffic at a later time. The summation of traffic from all threads generating small traffic volumes is what builds the long tail.

I love that you are embracing the *efficiency* of pruning content, and doing it in a very intelligent way.

From what I see, you have been successful in determining which threads are not producing. My questions might be: Why aren't they producing? Is it possible we're pruning anything that, with minor modification, might become a traffic bearing asset?

In many cases, the threads you prune will deserve the pruning. They'll contain low value, short, statistically insignificant content, and likely have bad titles.

However, there will be some instances where content that might otherwise be a reasonable resource for some keyword combinations, but has a factor such as a generic title like "Check this out" which diminishes its ability to rank.

Yet, it is possible for that category of threads to actually produce traffic, if slightly modified to correct an issue. In the example, this would equate to changing the title.

Since user generated content on a forum generates many thousands of threads over time, finding a category of threads that need some attention, could equate to a nice %-age increase in traffic with a little help.

The "little help" in this case is a process that either automatically (ideal) or manually (possible) fixes the threads.

So, one might suggest that you could, rather than simply pruning the threads, create a list of threads that have been flagged for deletion. Create a tool for moderators to quickly scan and modify titles for those that are far too generic, yet have good to average content within the thread. Then put them on a timer for 3-6 months. Those that do not show any ability to deliver traffic after their last fix, get archived permanently and your pruning process still works as planned to increase efficiency.

If you don't want to modify titles manually, you might try "phrase extraction" to replace the poorly performing titles automatically.

In any event, I enjoyed your post. I'm glad to see that you're taking an active approach at improving quality and efficiency.

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Joe Ward / Crawlability Inc.
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Joe:

I appreciate all the tips and look forward to implementing them.

Thanks. - Rik