The relationship between news websites and Google has been backwards for a while as sites make content optimized for Google.
The latest and most absurd trend is sites like CNet deleting old articles (e.g. 1996 articles about AOL service tiers) because they believe Google penalizes old content.
First of all, Google search liaisons say they don’t do this. Secondly it’s a terrible thing for a news site to break permalinks on the web for SEO reasons even if it was true. https://tedium.co/2023/08/11/content-pruning-news-websites-is-stupid/
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@carnage4life CNet: Let's generate and post some random crap!
Also CNet: oh no, our ratings have tanked, maybe we should delete some old content 
