Inside TechTarget’s Massive SEO Cleanup: The Case Study You’ve Never Heard
Performance SEO Unpacked with Ruchi Pardal explores a real-world SEO collapse: a 25% traffic drop on a massive site with 50+ subdomains. Guest Jenny Waggenheim shares how, over 18 months, the team fixed old content, page speed, and registration, cut 80% of pages, consolidated subdomains, and built authority, driving millions of views and 200% year-over-year growth.
Timestamps
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 | Episode intro & case study setup |
| 02:06 | Meet Jenny Wagenheim |
| 02:19 | Detecting the traffic drop & initial diagnosis |
| 04:48 | Quick audits & fixes (registration, page speed) |
| 07:13 | Index/page bloat discovery |
| 11:02 | Data-driven unpublish/remediate rules |
| 13:18 | Major content prune (≈80% cut) |
| 13:44 | Subdomain → subfolder consolidation begins |
| 24:33 | Pillar content packages and buyer-journey strategy |
| 29:51 | Cautious use of AI; focus on authentic E-A-T content |
| 35:05 | Practical checklist for a site “on fire” (audit, slow down, get buy-in) |
| 37:16 | Key outcomes and final takeaways |
“Take your time, conduct a full audit, get expert help, and prioritize building a stronger, more effective site for long-term success.” — Jenny Waggenheim, SEO & Content Strategist
What You’ll Learn
In this episode, you’ll learn how a massive SEO program can collapse overnight and what it takes to recover, including fixing old content, improving page speed, adjusting registration to second click, cleaning up index pages, and consolidating subdomains. You’ll also discover building topical authority, optimizing crawl bandwidth, implementing pillar strategies, gaining editorial buy-in, and ultimately driving millions of organic views and 200% year-over-year growth.
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