This SOP is a work in progress. If you notice anything that is out of date, could be more clear or could be more efficient please update the SOP or add a comment to start a conversation.

Purpose

These are guidelines for deleting or unlinking pages from a website which you may have to do if you are removing duplicate content, accidentally created the wrong snippet, etc.

Procedure

  1. The first thing to do is to copy the entire URL of the page you’re going to remove and paste it in Notepad++ or somewhere for reference later, you'll need it later.

  1. Make sure the page that you want to remove is not linked up anywhere on the website (buttons, in-text links, etc). You'll need to check all pages. You can find each page the snippet is on in the Show Config tab under DSAdmin. Use Ctrl+F and search for the SEF portion of the URL of the page you are removing. If you find instances of the page you are wishing to delete being linked to from existing pages, you will have to go in to those existing pages, locate where the link that leads to the snippet you wish to delete is, and remove that link or replace it with a more appropriate link based on the link structure of your site. The goal is to no longer have the snippet you are deleting accessible by users or search engines. 


The left column tells you which snippet the URL is found in.


  1. Once you've unlinked the snippet from all pages you can delete the Featured Banner Below H1 content and Pagefooter content snippets in the Manage Snippets editor.


  1. Still in the Manage Snippet editor, unspool the "Default" drop-down and go to "Text" - here is where you'll delete the H1.

  2. Unspool the "Text" drop-down and go to "SEO/Meta" - here is where you'll delete the Title/Description/Keywords.

  3. The last thing to do is find your client in the New Google Search Console. Under the "Legacy tools and reports" drop-down tab click on "Removals". This will take you to the OLD Google Search Console. Here, click on "Temporarily Hide" and paste the URL from Step 1. The request type should be "Clear URL from Cache and temporarily remove from Search". Click Submit Request.

For Steps 4 & 5, it is useful to open up the in-line editor on the page you want to delete and add and save the word "delete" at the start of your H1/Title/Description/Keywords/On-Page content, that way, when you go to the Manage Snippets editor you know exactly which snippets your getting rid of.

You may also want to re-submit a sitemap if you're removing multiple pages or pages that were previously getting page visits.