When should I 301 redirect a page instead of deleting it?

Redirect any page that has links pointing at it, traffic, or rankings, and delete only pages that have none of those. When you consolidate three overlapping pages into one strong page, 301 the two retired URLs to the survivor so their history carries over.

Point every redirect at the closest equivalent page, never the home page, because Google treats mass redirects to the home page as soft 404s and throws the value away. Avoid chains too: if page A already redirects to B and you later retire B, update A to point straight at C.

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