When do you cut off the long tail?

Average life of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
A housefly: 20 days
A giraffe: 25 years
The sun: 10 billion years

Some content on the web? Even longer. Or so it seems.

Much has been written about the benefits of "The Long Tail." And it's true that modern technology has allowed businesses to cater to and profit from niche audiences more than ever before.

But I think it raises an important topic: What's the distinction between "older", valuable content and "old" content that should be deleted? How valuable does something need to be for you to keep it?

In many cases, deleting older articles or files from your website is not a necessity - as long as the information is still accurate. But if old content clogs up your search engine, it may be doing some harm. Consider keeping older items in an archive directory that can be searched separately.

Do an occasional content audit and review the metrics of your site. Then you'll have a better idea of what to keep, what to archive, and what to trash.