Website Content Audit: What to Update, Merge or Delete

Why a website content audit matters

A company site that has been running for a few years almost always collects clutter: last season's promotions, three articles on the same topic written by different people, service pages for things you no longer offer. A visitor lands on an outdated price or a phone number nobody answers, while a search engine sees a crowd of weak pages next to the strong ones. Both customer trust and search visibility suffer.

An audit is not cleaning for its own sake. It gives you a way to make a deliberate decision about each page based on data rather than taste.

Step 1. Build the inventory and gather data

Start with a complete list of pages. Pull it from your sitemap, a crawler export and the content list in your CMS, then combine everything in one spreadsheet with a row per page. For each row, add:

Use a full year of search data so seasonality does not mislead you, for example gift demand before holidays or air conditioners in summer. Also check leads that arrive outside forms: many customers in Uzbekistan message on Telegram or call directly, so a page with modest traffic can still drive real enquiries.

• URL, page type, publication and last update dates
• the main query the page is meant to target
• impressions and clicks from search (Search Console)
• visits and goal completions in analytics: leads, calls, Telegram clicks
• number of external and internal links pointing to the page

Step 2. Judge each page and decide

Ask a few questions of every page. Are prices, terms, addresses and contacts still correct? Does it fully answer the query? Does it offer something competitors do not? Does it repeat another page on your site? Does it reflect your current range of services? Then assign one of five decisions:

Be careful with deletion. If a page has external links or even a little traffic, it is usually better to merge it into a closely related page and set up a permanent redirect.

• keep: the page works and is current
• update: the topic matters, but facts are outdated or the page is thin
• merge: several weak pages on one topic become a single strong one
• rewrite: the topic is right, but the page misses what users actually want
• remove or noindex: no traffic, no links, no prospects

Keyword cannibalization and content gaps

Cannibalization happens when two of your pages alternate in search results for the same query and both rankings keep bouncing. A typical case is a service page and a blog post with the same focus. The fix is to choose the main page, then either retarget the other one, merge it into the first, or keep it as a supporting piece that links to the main page.

An audit also shows what is absent. Compare your structure with the questions your managers hear every day: delivery to the regions, paying through Click or Payme, instalments, warranty. If the site has no answer, that is a candidate for a new page. The same goes for services you sell but have no dedicated page for.

Check the Russian and Uzbek versions together

A common situation: one language version gets updated while the other keeps the old prices and terms. A customer who opens the Uzbek page sees one thing and the Russian page another, and trust drops.

Translation quality is a separate issue. Unedited machine text answers native speakers poorly, because people search in Uzbek differently from how software translates. Treat each language version as its own page with its own queries and its own data.

Common mistakes to avoid

Most problems after an audit come not from the decisions themselves but from rushing their execution:

• deleting low-traffic pages that still bring leads, so check goals first
• removing many pages at once without redirects
• "updating" a page by changing only its date
• judging by traffic alone and ignoring business value
• leaving internal links pointing to old URLs

Plan the work and measure the result

Turn the decisions into a prioritised plan. Start with pages that have noticeable traffic and outdated information, then merges and cannibalization, then new pages. Track status in the same spreadsheet.

After a few months, compare impressions, clicks and leads on the updated pages with your starting numbers. Removing weak pages alone may not produce growth; the visible effect usually comes when the important pages are strengthened at the same time. Repeat the audit roughly once a year, and more often for large sites with active content.

Sometimes the audit reveals that the structure is so dated that rebuilding it is easier than patching it. markdev builds websites end to end in Uzbekistan and can help with both the audit and a new structure. Tell us about your task and we will discuss where it makes sense to start.