With the number of new documents we create every day, it can be easy to forget the importance of regular audits to make sure nothing outdated (like old PDFs) is taking up space on Cascade or showing up in Google searches when you don't want them to.
Reviewing your existing assets, deleting or replacing them as needed and following best practices for their deletion or archival are essential for maintaining an organized, user-friendly website.
Keep old assets off Google
The first and most important benefit of deleting old assets is that you keep them from appearing in Google Search results.
Every published asset will be indexed by Google and is a potential search result. As you can see from the screenshot above, Googling for the FIU MPAS handbook displays only one handbook.
If the handbook had been previously uploaded two times already, then all three handbooks could appear on Google Search results with very little to distinguish them from each other!
Keep old assets off Cascade
Then there's the state of your Cascade folders. It's simple: reviewing your assets keeps things neat.
Just like three copies of the same PDF might clog up your department's Google results, so too can those copies clog up your assets folders.
Keep in mind this is not just an aesthetic choice. By keeping your folders clean and free of outdated assets, you make it less likely that a member of your team will select the wrong PDF when it comes time to post it on your website.
How to delete outdated assets
Any steps beyond pressing the Delete button depend on where your asset is currently linked. If it is linked in many different places, the deletion process takes more work, but it isn't complicated.
Use the Relationships button
If you have your asset open, click More in the top-right, followed by Relationships in the dropdown menu.
Relationships will show you where your asset is currently linked. Swap out those URLs and references before deleting your asset.
Set up redirects if needed
If the asset is linked somewhere that cannot be changed, you might need to create redirects in Cascade so your users don't end up on 404 pages. A good example of a scenario where you might need a redirect is if your team created a flyer, without using go.FIU, that contained a link to a PDF that got replaced after printing.
Please note it is okay if the deleted asset's link leads to a 404 page. Redirects are only necessary if you are leading them to the 404 page through something like a direct, unchangeable link.
Clearing Google Search results
Although you may have deleted your old assets, they may continue to appear in search results until Google can recrawl the site. This can take up to 14 days.
However, Google provides different ways to update or remove search results.
- Remove a page hosted on your site from Google
- Clear your search result snippet in Google Search results
If deleting seems too drastic, archive the right way
Deciding whether to delete an old document can be a paralyzing decision. Likely, it's this difficult decision that keeps old documents lying around even when the chances your 2022 handbook will be needed online are unlikely.
If deleting seems too drastic, remember, simply unlinking documents or unpublishing them isn't enough! Make sure you're archiving your old content and assets in Cascade the right way.
Preventing pileups
Our departments can get pretty busy, making it difficult to schedule asset folder clean-up time. The solution is to keep it from becoming a big problem in the first place. To do that, you can follow a few best practices moving forward:
- Schedule regular asset reviews, either using Cascade's Schedule Review feature or just putting it on your team's calendar (think of it as a digital spring cleaning).
- Replacing asset files whenever you can rather than creating new ones or at least deleting old assets when new ones are created.
- Uploading assets with descriptive names if you do have to keep all of them, to ensure you are at least informing users what version of the asset they are viewing.