Noindex vs Delete & Merge thin content pages - Which is the best?

Hello,

I had some thin content pages, and by thin, I mean posts with a couple of pictures and download links. So I decided to merge all the download links from each post into one main download page and to unpublish those posts later; they are 404 now. They had no authority, so redirections were completely unnecessary.

Is it correct to assume that the existing website authority will go to fewer URLs, thus making the active ones more powerful?

This is the reason I opted for merge & delete instead of noindex those URLs. A noindexed page is still a link that receives authority.

What do you think? Is merge & delete thin content pages a good solution to empower the high-quality pages?

Thank you

I would suggest noindex if they’re not important

Sburator said:

This is the reason I opted for merge & delete instead of noindex those URLs. A noindexed page is still a link that receives authority.

Click to expand...

hence 301.

simply redirect thin pages to the merge page you created