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You might have faced some difficulties when you tried to update or remove outdated content from your online courses.
Especially if it’s uploaded on a completely different website.
Don’t worry, we have a detailed guide for you that can help you to delete or edit outdated content in your online courses.
In this article, we will go through the following topics:
- How to update content in a stand-alone online course
- How to remove outdated content from a website
So without any delay, let’s get started.
Removing Outdated Content
Following is a step-by-step guide for you to remove/edit outdated content.
This is where things get a little tricky.
You might have published your course on your WordPress site and you are the site owner as well.
While on the other hand, you might have made an online course for a third-party website.
Both of these aforementioned scenarios have different procedures.
Important Note:
You can either directly remove content from your course if you are the site owner or you can upload a newly edited version of the course from scratch.
You should keep in mind that the outdated page removal should always be done by an experienced person otherwise it can mess with the layout.
Removing Content as a Site Owner
As we mentioned in the previous segment, it is easy to remove and update content based on search results when you are the website owner.
Important Note:
This guide is only for course content that you’ve published on a website hosted by WordPress.
In such a case, you have two choices:
- Edit the course while it is live on the website.
- Take it down and upload the updated version.
The method you choose to remove content completely depends on your personal preference.
You can remove and update the content yourself if you are experienced with the working of a WordPress website.
On the contrary, you can hire an experienced professional to do it for you.
You can follow the following steps if you are the website owner.
Open your WordPress Account
The first step is to Log In with the account that holds ownership of the website. This will directly take you to the main page of the WordPress hub.
Tip: If you want to know, how to update your WordPress theme without losing content, CLICK HERE.
Here you can see multiple options and ways to edit your website.
Open the Posts Tab
After that, you’ll have to open the Posts Tab from the menu on your left-hand side.
This will open a smaller menu and you will have to select the All Posts options from it.
This will take you to a new window with all your posts in it.
The Posts tab has all the material that has been published on your website and the content that is still pending to be published.
Select the Outdated Course
From here on, you will have to scroll and search for the course that you want to remove/edit.
Once you have found it, select the options menu on its right-hand side.
Then select the Trash option and it will temporarily hide URLs of your selected content from the website.
Using the Trash option doesn’t delete the post, it just removes them temporarily from the website. You will have to manually delete them from the Trashed folder.
To do that, just select the Trashed folder in the search console interface.
It will take you to the said folder.
Here you can select to either restore other URLs or completely remove them.
Content Removal Request
This method is for you if you wish to remove content from a third-party website. You can request the removal of multiple things.
These things include:
- Personal Information
- Outdated Content
- Multiple URLs
This is a multiple-step process and contains the use of a new tool from Google called Remove Outdated Content Tool.
This Outdated Content Tool enables you to make removal requests based on the search results from search engines.
For this, you will have to go to the Official Google Support Page.
Google Search Console
The first step is to search for the Outdated Content Tool in the Google Search Console.
You can either search Google or just click on the link here.
Here you can make Page removal requests and add description snippets for why you want the content removed.
Always inform the site owners of your Third-party before you initiate this step to avoid any misunderstanding.
Once you click on the New Request button, it will prompt a new window.
The next step is to copy the link address of the outdated page from Google and post it here.
Once you have submitted the web link, Google recrawls its algorithm and checks the validity of the removal request.
After it has checked the validity, Google Search Console will move onwards with the outdated page removal request.
You can check the status of your web page removal on the bottom of the Remove Outdated Content Tool.
Once it has contacted the site/page owners, Google will show the search results for your query with a refreshed interface.
One other lesser feature that you might not need but is quite important to mention is Image Removal.
It is the same process but for pictures that show up in the Google Search Console.
This is a new removal tool that enables you to remove visual content from Google which is published on different websites.
They can either be a part of a web page, an article page, or just a stand-alone picture published on a site.
Importance of Content Removal
Now that you know how to use removal requests and removal tools, you should also know why it is important to update or remove content.
In the modern era, information is constantly changing. Google’s Index keeps track of all the changes in its database.
Google Index uses SafeSearch filtering to temporarily hide information that is no longer relevant or is outdated.
How does it impact my brand’s image?
The hidden information still exists but isn’t given the preference. This can seriously damage your brand’s reputation.
Besides that, in the current day and age, facts and information are updated by the second.
You have to compare the content from Google with your online courses to keep it in check. Otherwise, Google Analytics can put them in the Cached Page category.
An outdated page will attract less traffic and hence, it will no longer show up on the first page of Google.
Important Note:
To make sure this doesn’t happen, you need to keep your URLs updated if you are a website owner.
If you just want to edit your online course, you need to change the page description of your courses according to the top Google search results.
Finding Outdated Content
The next step is to determine whether your course has outdated content or not.
You can easily do this by running a simple search using the Google Search Console.
How can I do it?
Type the main key heading of your online course and check the search results.
Then you can compare your course and the top results from Google Search to separate the outdated content.
You can either highlight your outdated content or note it down on a notepad tool.
Multiple efficient tools can help you to devise a detailed plan for the outdated content.
One of these tools is Google Keep. It can help you in multiple ways to keep the content organized.
Important Tips For Removals Tool
Even though Google enables individual users with its removal tool and makes existing capabilities better, there are some limits to it.
Before you get into using a Remove Outdated Content Tool, you should keep the following tips in mind:
- Always read Google’s Remove Outdated Content Tool guidelines.
- Only use this tool when the third party is showing irresponsibility in removing content from Google.
- Always inform the site owners that you want to remove outdated content.
- Only use the Remove Outdated Content Tool for legal purposes.
- Do not abuse this tool.
Want to know about getting into the online course business? CLICK HERE
Conclusion
Updating your online course material and website can increase the inflow of traffic and enhance the value of your course.
An outdated online will not only fall short of the market standards but will also create difficulties for you in selling it.
You can implement the methods explained in this article to keep your courses in check and easily edit/remove unnecessary content from your course material.
We hope that a few examples mentioned in this article can help you add and use the new removals tool efficiently.
Do let us know if there is anything we missed regarding outdated content removal.
Take a look at our complete online course management guide to help you manage your online courses.