I have a niche, active forum with some very good user content. Other websites happily link to it (organically) because it's actually useful, I'm doing no SEO, just following Google's official best practices.

• The topic owners sometimes delete their posts or leave my site requesting for all their data to be removed. No problem, happy to do that, normal user lifecycle.
• I'd hate to have all these inbound links to my old content to 404. I've noticed in Google Search Console a lot of organic, high-quality inbound links to removed content on my site that just 404 and eventually die, it's embarrassing and also quite a waste of good links.

1. Should I 301-redirect the removed content somewhere?
2. Redirecting to the front page does not seem ideal (but possible),
3. maybe redirect the removed pages to a higher-level category page?
4. What is the best for usability

And also is there a way to keep those quality inbound links, would be very detrimental to lose them.

I have a niche, active forum with some very good user content. Other websites happily link to it (organically) because it's actually useful, I'm doing no SEO, just following Google's official best practices.

• The topic owners sometimes delete their posts or leave my site requesting for all their data to be removed. No problem, happy to do that, normal user lifecycle.
• I'd hate to have all these inbound links to my old content to 404. I've noticed in Google Search Console a lot of organic, high-quality inbound links to removed content on my site that just 404 and eventually die, it's embarrassing and also quite a waste of good links.

1. Should I 301-redirect the removed content somewhere?
2. Redirecting to the front page does not seem ideal (but possible),
3. maybe redirect the removed pages to a higher-level category page?

What is the best for usability? Is there a way to keep those quality inbound links, would be very detrimental to lose them.

I have a niche, active forum with some very good user content. Other websites happily link to it (organically) because it's actually useful, I'm doing no SEO, just following Google's official best practices.

However, the topic owners sometimes delete their posts or leave my site requesting for all their data to be removed. No problem, happy to do that, normal user lifecycle. However, I'd hate to have all these inbound links to my old content to 404. I've noticed in Google Search Console a lot of organic, high-quality inbound links to removed content on my site that just 404 and eventually die, it's embarrassing and also quite a waste of good links. Should I 301-redirect the removed content somewhere? Redirecting to the front page does not seem ideal (but possible), maybe redirect the removed pages to a higher-level category page? What is the best for usability and also is there a way to keep those quality inbound links, would be very detrimental to lose them.

I have a niche, active forum with some very good user content. Other websites happily link to it (organically) because it's actually useful, I'm doing no SEO, just following Google's official best practices.

• The topic owners sometimes delete their posts or leave my site requesting for all their data to be removed. No problem, happy to do that, normal user lifecycle.
• I'd hate to have all these inbound links to my old content to 404. I've noticed in Google Search Console a lot of organic, high-quality inbound links to removed content on my site that just 404 and eventually die, it's embarrassing and also quite a waste of good links.

1. Should I 301-redirect the removed content somewhere?
2. Redirecting to the front page does not seem ideal (but possible),
3. maybe redirect the removed pages to a higher-level category page?
4. What is the best for usability

And also is there a way to keep those quality inbound links, would be very detrimental to lose them.