With regards to SEO is it good or bad to remove all the old events from our website?

[Alexogilvie]

Our website sells tickets for various events across the UK, we do have a LOT of old event pages on our website which simply say SOLD OUT. What is the best practice?

Should these event pages be removed and a 301 redirect added to redirect to the home page?

Or should these pages remain in tact with simply SOLD OUT on the page?

[KeriMorgret]

This post may also be of help: http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/how-should-you-handle-expired-content

[onlinechester]

could you perhaps use these pages as a way of capturing visitors email addresses? I.e 'The above event has now sold out/ taken place but to be first to hear about the next event (by the same group/artist) submit your email address here?

I think it is good to have these pages still on your site as it shows visitors you've sold tickets for lots of past events and I suppose if the pages are well optimised it will see you rank for tickets for the particular artist on the page.

Either way I'd keep the pages.

[AWCthreads]

Depending on how your site is set up I think some history of sold out events gives you credibility from a user perspective.

Having said that however, as a user I don't want to see sold out events past the last 6 months (if you've got quite a few) - 12 months at the most.

Anything past that I would delete and redirect to current events.