Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this. I recently changed the niche of my blog (well a few times actually) from a magazine to a money making blog.

The problem is, while my blog was a magazine, I had a high bounce rate and still do because I haven't exactly deleted these old posts. Of course, my new posts (the actual useful ones) do not have a high bounce rate... but because of the high bounce rate on the large # of previous magazine posts (that are now archived and only accessible through search engines), the bounce rate for the main domain is still high (from Google Analytics).

The main question is: will the bounce rate on these old posts influence my blog negatively in any way (even though they are archived)? I figure it will because it raises the overall bounce rate on my main domain...? But then deleting all the old, unrelated posts will also cause a bunch of broken links. What do you suggest?

Leave em and just start burying them with quality content. Like you said, you don't want a load of broken links and don't really sweat the bounce rate as you transition.

agree improve the quality of the posts, try to get the bounce rate under 30 if possible, but remember the bounce rate its only 1 of about 200 other factors so dont waste to much time on it, rather spend time on links

I would focus more on links unless the bounce rate is like 90%, then I would kill myself.