Purchased 250 Page Site - Can I Start Over?

[JeremyM]

I purchased a site with about 250 pages on it (just wanted the domain) and would like to start over with my own content. The site is index but hardly has any backlinks and doesn't rank very well (but does still pick up some hits).

Do you think it would be better to just keep the old pages (not the highest quality content) or delete everything and start fresh? If starting fresh, do you think there is any chance of a penalty after removing 250 pages from webmaster tools?

Any input or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Jeremy

[parttimepoker]

Can you improve / overhaul some of the content and maybe get rid of 50% instead of 100%?

When you say "not the highest quality", what do you mean? Is it written poorly or is it just sort of stock content? If it's just sort of boring, standard content but is written fine, I would update anything I wanted to use and keep the rest of it but move what I didn't update into "archives" or something like that.

[Newjabber]

overhaul. Some content might need to get dumped, but if there are already titles you can use, then i would add new content instead if the overall structure of the site is good. If its a complete mess, then starting completely from scratch might be better.

[Michael Martinez]

I would just set up a page that explains the change in ownership/content and 301-redirect all the old URLs (except the root, of course) to that page. Have the page link to the root URL (it should, in fact, use the new design and navigation and be included in the navigation, the HTML sitemap at least).

[PokerFelts]

I think that answer depends on what you can realistically deliver on the site, if you can provide 500 quality articles onto the site then you will in theory dilute the poor content and that will increase the status of the site although if any of the content already on the site has been duplicated or stolen then it could be a case of a large list of 301 redirects into the homepage and start the content building from a new beginning.

[JeremyM]

I would just set up a page that explains the change in ownership/content and 301-redirect all the old URLs (except the root, of course) to that page. Have the page link to the root URL (it should, in fact, use the new design and navigation and be included in the navigation, the HTML sitemap at least).

Thanks, I didn't think of that...I like that idea.

There are a few pages that have similar topics (but I want to use a different URL structure) - do you think it would negatively impact SEO if I 301 90% of the pages to the new "change in ownership" page and then link the rest to other related new content?...I'm just not sure how Google would handle such a big site change with all the re-directs.

[Michael Martinez]

There are a few pages that have similar topics (but I want to use a different URL structure) - do you think it would negatively impact SEO if I 301 90% of the pages to the new "change in ownership" page and then link the rest to other related new content?...I'm just not sure how Google would handle such a big site change with all the re-directs.

Not in the least. I wiped out Xenite.Org last June and redirected all the old URLs to a page that explained what happened. As I have republished some old content on new URLs I have implemented single-line redirects to recover the relationship between those articles and old links on other sites.

So far, Xenite has been doing fantastic.

[JeremyM]

Thanks I really appreciate the help!

Not in the least. I wiped out Xenite.Org last June and redirected all the old URLs to a page that explained what happened. As I have republished some old content on new URLs I have implemented single-line redirects to recover the relationship between those articles and old links on other sites.

So far, Xenite has been doing fantastic.