Last time we redesigned a major site, we carefully analyzed every URL for organic traffic value. Most were worthless: barely indexed by Google and receiving at most a couple visits a month. We killed most of them and saw improvements in overall traffic from search.
I think a lot of folks originally thought of websites like reference books. And some should still be thought of that way (Wikipedia, open source documentation, etc). I used to try very hard to keep all URLs functional during site redesigns. We accumulated thousands and thousands of redirects… most of which were never used.
I’ve since come to consider that a lot of sites are more like magazines: useful for a limited time span but not something that needs to live on your shelf forever.
I think a lot of folks originally thought of websites like reference books. And some should still be thought of that way (Wikipedia, open source documentation, etc). I used to try very hard to keep all URLs functional during site redesigns. We accumulated thousands and thousands of redirects… most of which were never used.
I’ve since come to consider that a lot of sites are more like magazines: useful for a limited time span but not something that needs to live on your shelf forever.