Redundant, Outdated, and/or Trivial Content (ROT): Review and Clean Up Your Web Area

Identifying and treating ROT is important because it:

Interferes with search results and makes it harder for people to find what they are looking for;
Erodes the credibility and authority of EPA.gov content;
Makes maintenance, especially backup and data storage more costly; and
Makes updating sites time-consuming and burdensome.

On this page:

Definition of redundant, outdated, and trivial content (ROT)
Identify ROT content in your pages
Treat and prevent ROT
ROT in PDFs

Definition of redundant, outdated, and trivial content (ROT)

Redundant

Redundant content is characterized by repeating the same idea in multiple locations, such as:

Duplicate pages/documents
Multiple pages on the same topic, written for the same/similar audience.

Outdated

Outdated content consists of materials that are no longer in use, or are out-of-date, such as:

Pages that refer to something "new" that is now well established
Pages that describe defunct projects
Pages that refer to events that have concluded, which have no historical value (conference registration pages, meeting agendas, etc.).

Trivial

Trivial content is of little importance or value, and is considered insignificant to the overall scheme or purpose of your website, including:

Content that doesn't clearly serve the intended audience and their top tasks
Pages without “real” information.

Identify ROT content in your pages

First, realize that this is an ongoing process. Like cleaning your garage or maintaining your Inbox, taking care of ROT is not a one-time process. Build content management, including ROT treatment, into your workflow.

Use the Group Entity page: You can get a list of all the content in your web area by going to the Group Entity page and browsing content, files, and links. This is the default view when you select your web area name from the "My Web Areas" page.

Once you have your list of content, review it for signs of ROT.

Possible signs of ROT

Duplicates
Old files (old is relative, but files that have not been updated in more than a year could be suspect)
Local copies of files hosted elsewhere, such as Agency images, EPA press releases, Federal Register and CFR notices, and Non-EPA materials (e.g. NIH press releases)
- This includes EPA publications: if your PDF has an EPA publication number, it is probably a duplicate of a copy in NSCEP
  - See Submitting Publications to, and Linking to EPA Publications in, the National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP)
File formats other than PDF (see Web Standard: Standard Web Formats and Proprietary File Formats)
Old conference material, newsletters, calendars
Pages with “EPA no longer updates this content” notices (Cobwebbed content) - if it’s not worth maintaining, is it worth keeping?
Pages that are only getting a few visits each month.

Tools

Popular vs. unpopular pages/PDFs in Google Analytics

Look at the HTML or PDF report for your web area. Note: make sure your date range is big enough to include content with fewer pageviews, and remember pages with no pageviews won't be in the report so compare to total content in Group Dashboard.
- Create a HTML pageviews report
  - Also use this data to create a quick and simple list of your low-use pages
- Create a PDF views/downloads report
  - Tip: you may want to export the first and last views of the report into Excel, so you can compare top results to bottom results
- Open the pages/PDFs in your web browser and compare:
  - What do the top pages have in common?
  - What do the bottom pages have in common?
  - Look at how well they meet:

Search results in EPA.gov search

Try to get your pages to show in epa.gov search results and compare how they look – are they appealing (title, description)?
Look at other similar content that comes up in those search results. You may find that the reason your pageviews are low is that your content is very similar to another result.
- Reducing duplication is better for your analytics, for search results, for your users’ needs, and for our credibility! So look for opportunities to interlink rather than duplicate, especially with PDFs (see Linking to EPA Publications in the National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP)).

Treat and prevent ROT

Content identified as possible ROT can be addressed in one of the following ways.

Remove content no longer useful for the scope/audience of the site

You will improve search results, inspire more user confidence in your site, and make content management an easier task if you remove or delete ROT.

Target the obvious ROT first: duplicates, test materials, dated materials (conference logistics, public meeting notices), etc.
For pages or files with low usage: A low number of hits, or a high bounce rate on pages that are mainly links, can hint that the file is not valuable to your audience and is a candidate for removal.

Select content that needs updating

For valuable content:

Rethink how it is titled, where it is linked from, what kind of metadata it has, etc. Is it easy to browse to? Is it easy to search for?
Improve titles, metadata, link placement, etc., so that your audience can more readily find your content.
Update pages to better meet:

Replace ROT with strategic linking

Link to the NSCEP document. Before removing content with an EPA report number from your web area, make sure NSCEP has a copy. If they don’t you can provide them with one and remove your unwanted content.
Link to the FedSys FR or CFR, or to Regulations.gov. If the information can be found in the official docket, link to it.
Link to EPA’s or the owning-Agency’s Newsroom. Don’t keep local copies of Press Release notices, news releases, or other announcements.

Prevent future ROT

Be sure that content is relevant to the audience, task, and goal of the site.
Limit each page to a single topic, audience and purpose.
For every piece of content, ask yourself if it is necessary. Does it exist already in some other form? Should it exist?
Do not duplicate information that is already on another page, or in another web area. Link to it.
Do not post “your copy” of a document, link to it.
Write timeless content: Use dates and phrases related to “when” judiciously.

ROT in PDFs

Your PDF files should be regularly reviewed for ROT. If links have broken, either fix them or remove the hyperlink and leave the old URL. See the Procedure: Web Content Types and Review for information on what to consider when reviewing content.