Prune or improve? The helpful-content decision tree

Prune or improve? The helpful-content decision tree
Framing: after a helpful-content-style hit, every guide says 'cut thin pages' — but the choice between deleting, merging, and rewriting depends on the signal.

🔗 [GSC + analytics overlay] — zero impressions AND zero links AND no conversions: a prune candidate.
🔗 [Log file analysis tools] — if Google still crawls a low-value page often, redirecting beats deleting (preserve the crawl signal).
🔗 [Content decay reports] — pages with history that faded are rewrite candidates, not deletions; they already earned trust.

The tradeoff: deletion is fast and feels decisive, but irreversible loss of any equity hurts if the page had latent value. Merge when two pages split the same intent; rewrite when intent is right but execution aged.

One to bookmark: a simple impressions-x-links quadrant — it sorts prune/merge/rewrite/keep in one screen.