All ROT is not created equal

If your site is more than a few years old, odds are you've got some ROT (Redundant, Outdated or Trivial) content lurking. I understand how it happens. I'm even guilty of it myself. You publish something out to the Web and simply move on to the next task on your list. We all mean to go back someday to update or remove that content, but somehow it's never top of mind. That is, until suddenly the ROT causes a problem. Maybe you notice some feedback about poor usability or search results. Or, you're about to migrate into a new CMS and suddenly you're faced with the online equivalent of the hall closet - the one that is chock full of junk that you just can't ignore any longer.

You don't want to migrate all that useless content into a new site (remember the old saying, 'garbage in, garbage out'). But don't rush into a snap decision, like setting an arbitrary date and declaring that all content more than X years old is ROT and should be removed. A one-size fits all approach almost never applies to all content and actually creates unintended headaches. For example, if you're a manufacturer, you may have product manuals that are relevant for five or more years. So while a general ROT rule might work for short-term content, like an event announcement, it has no bearing on content with a longer shelf-life.

The best approach is to evaluate ROT by content type. This gives your content owners some guidelines for identifying and treating suspect ROT. It also saves them from reviewing content unnecessarily.  In the example above, product manuals could have a five-year shelf life and events could become ROT after three months.

By adopting this approach to ROT, you'll be more organized in your initial clean up efforts and it will help you to prevent ROT build up in the future.