Retiring and removing content at scale

A look at how the University of Cambridge is in trouble with an overgrown web estate and some of the ways we are trying to fix that content problem.

1. Retiring and removing content… at scale. William Kerslake University of Cambridge @williamkerslake Speakerdeck.com/wk252
2. An overgrown site
3. Duplicate content risk
4. A complex web of institutions.
5. University collects everything
6. Trojan Room Coffee Pot’s content lifecycle
7. Our web estate is huge and growing 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 2008 2013 2018 2023 2024
8. Basics Websites are locally optimised
9. 2,500 sites with over 2 million web pages
10. 1,300+ editors
11. SEO Make it easier for search engines to find and understand.
12. Make it easier for users, and it is easier for search engines.
13. Try it I want to study English at Cambridge. What will it cost?
15. £9,250 Maybe.
16. Google gets it wrong
17. Where to start? Prioritise and reduce
18. Find content owners
19. Don’t go alone
20. Get data Google Analytics 4 on everything.
21. Tag Manager Lookup Table variable
22. Inventory and audit
23. Start crawling
24. Be ruthless
25. Additive bias Easy to add more, hard to take away
26. Archive Make it less scary for people.
27. Clear criteria For last year { If views < 366 then delete Else review }
28. Redundant Obsolete Trivial
29. Obsolete… As the Millenium approaches, the Fitzwilliam Museum is opening a new exhibition focusing on the apocalyptic vision of a German artist five hundred years ago.
30. Redundant...
31. Trivial… last 12 months
32. Criteria need data For published > 10 years { If ROT = true then delete Else review }
33. =IMPORTXML(“URL”,”xpath”)
34. Custom crawl Screamingfrog’s Custom extraction & GA4 API
35. Crawl output
36. Export Use criteria and conditional formatting to target
37. Take out easy targets
38. Redirect users
39. Success?
40. URL and domain strategy
41. Let’s get fixing. William Kerslake University of Cambridge @williamkerslake Speakerdeck.com/wk252