SEO content pruning: Complete 2026 guide and best practices

In 2026, content pruning has established itself as a fundamental SEO strategy, whose importance has been considerably reinforced by the recent revelations from the "Google leaks" and the documents from the antitrust lawsuit against Google. These leaks shed light on internal metrics such as "siteradius" and "sitefocusscore", confirming what many SEO experts had suspected: the quality and thematic focus of a website are more crucial than ever.

What is Content Pruning?

Content pruning is an SEO practice that involves identifying and removing or updating obsolete, redundant, or underperforming content on a website. The goal is to improve the overall quality of the site, optimize user experience, and strengthen its ranking in search results. Rather than simply accumulating content, pruning aims to keep only pages that provide real added value.

The types of content typically targeted for pruning are:

• Outdated content: information that is no longer up to date.
• Low-performing content: pages that generate little to no organic traffic.
• Low-quality content ("thin content"): pages with very little content or no real depth.
• Duplicate content: pages that replicate similar or identical content found elsewhere on the site.
• Off-topic content: articles that stray from the main theme of the site.

Insights from Google Leaks: Siteradius and Sitefocusscore

The leaks of internal Google documents revealed the existence of thousands of attributes used by the ranking algorithm. Among these, two metrics are particularly relevant to understanding the value of content pruning in 2026:

• Sitefocusscore: This metric evaluates how specialized a site is on a specific topic. A high score indicates that the site's content is highly focused on a central theme, which Google interprets as a sign of authority in that domain.
• Siteradius: This metric measures the thematic distance of individual pages from the site's main topic. A low "siteradius" means that pages are very close to the site's core focus, thus reinforcing its topical authority. Conversely, a high "siteradius" indicates that content is scattered across many topics, which can dilute the site's authority.

The Value of Content Pruning in 2026: An Essential Strategy

In light of these revelations, content pruning is no longer just a "best practice" for maintenance, but a major strategic lever. In 2026, its value has increased tenfold for several reasons:

1. Improving Sitefocusscore and reducing Siteradius: This is the most direct connection. By removing off-topic or low-quality pages, you tighten your site's thematic scope. This has the effect of increasing your "sitefocusscore" and decreasing your "siteradius", sending a strong signal to Google that your site is a reference on its subject.
2. Overall site quality trumps quantity: The leaks confirm that Google evaluates the quality of a site as a whole. Poor quality or off-topic pages can "drag down" the overall perception of your site by the algorithm. Thus, a poorly performing and irrelevant page doesn't just harm itself, but the entire domain.
3. Strengthening topical authority: In a context where artificial intelligence and direct answers are increasingly prominent in search results, topical authority is a differentiating factor. Google favors sites that demonstrate clear and consistent expertise on a specific subject. Content pruning is the ideal tool to assert and consolidate this expertise.
4. Crawl budget optimization: Google's robots have limited time to explore each site. By removing unnecessary pages, you ensure that this "crawl budget" is dedicated to your most important and highest quality pages, which can promote better indexing.

How to Implement Effective Content Pruning?

Successful pruning involves following a rigorous method. Here are the key steps recommended by any good SEO agency:

1. Audit your content: Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to identify low-performing pages. Analyze key metrics over a long period (at least 12 months): organic traffic, click-through rates, average positions, and inbound links (backlinks).
2. Analyze and decide: For each identified page, choose an action:
   • Update: If the content is relevant but outdated.
   • Consolidate: If multiple pages cover the same topic, merge them into a single high-quality piece of content.
   • Delete: If the page provides no value and has no quality inbound links.
3. Act methodically: When deleting a page, set up a 301 redirect to the most relevant page on your site (the homepage, a parent category, or a similar article). This preserves SEO value and avoids 404 errors.

Mistakes to Avoid and Best Practices

For your content pruning strategy to work perfectly, keep these points in mind:

• To avoid:
  • Deleting pages without analyzing their inbound links.
  • Forgetting to set up 301 redirects.
  • Pruning only once; it's an ongoing process.
• Best practices:
  • Proceed in batches to better measure the impact of your actions.
  • Always prioritize updating or consolidating before considering deletion.
  • Communicate changes to Google via Search Console after implementing your redirect plan.

In conclusion, content pruning in 2026 is a direct response to Google's increasingly demanding requirements for quality and thematic relevance. Revelations about metrics like "siteradius" and "sitefocusscore" validate the idea that it's better to have a smaller but highly specialized and quality site, rather than a large generalist site with many underperforming pages. Content pruning thus becomes an essential action for any site wishing to be considered an authority in its niche and perform sustainably in SEO.