Changing a 3 y/o site’s Category pages and silos

[AhFreshMeat]

I have 3 year old blog, it brings in 10k+ sessions a day and is ”successful”… but the category pages are so poorly optimized, and they are also indexed.

I was considering 301 or de-indexing them and optimizing this, and I’m confident the improved structure would help google and users understand my site better… the hope is better rankings.

My plan was to 301 my old category pages to a new, custom built page where I can control the link juice flow and sculpt a bit (Got this idea from an auth hackers podcast and also from another older thread on here).

The problem: Since the site is established already for 3 years and doesn’t have any “real issues”, would changing the category pages to custom pages for link juice sculpting cause more harm than good?

Or is it too tough to tell? I’ve heard some self proclaimed “seo vets” say don’t change the structure if its this old of a site, but i took it with a grain of salt and am still unsure.

TLDR; I’m unsure whether the following will do more harm than good on a healthy 3 y/o site: optimizing my sites category pages (which are indexed) by 301 redirecting to a new custom built silo for link sculpting.

 

[bernard]

I think you should be careful.

I like this idea and often considered it, but from my experience, as soon as you begin actually turning your category pages into a hub page, you do actually turn them into a hubpage and then they'll start ranking for all kind of keywords, that perhaps you didn't want them ranking for.

What we ideally would like them to rank for are category type keywords, no qualifiers, ecommerce categories only etc, but in reality, you'll begin ranking for a lot of stuff.

 

[AhFreshMeat]

I think you should be careful.

I like this idea and often considered it, but from my experience, as soon as you begin actually turning your category pages into a hub page, you do actually turn them into a hubpage and then they'll start ranking for all kind of keywords, that perhaps you didn't want them ranking for.

What we ideally would like them to rank for are category type keywords, no qualifiers, ecommerce categories only etc, but in reality, you'll begin ranking for a lot of stuff.

I was considering making my category’s pages “what is [category] and how does it work” type pages that could bring in links.

I think my main concern is that I have 30 category pages that aren’t “helpful” and i definitely feel its bringing down my overall “helpfulness” site-wide, possibly limiting my rankings site wide.

Also being able to control the juice is ideal. This is a tough one to decide