i noticed that we have a large number of old pages on our server that we no longer use. the only reason why i haven't deleted them is because they are so numerous, i figure they would take a great deal of time sift through and erase. does anybody know if these pages which aren't being linked to from anywhere else on the site, can lower our search ranking?
I'd suggest that you take the time to remove these pages. Even though these pages are no longer linked on your own site, you never know if there are any external links that are still pointing to these pages. If there are, spiders will still find them and consider them a part of your site. As to this will affect your rankings, no one knows for sure without taking a look of the content. But I think you will never go wrong with a clean up-to-date site.
I agree. You may think that nothing is linked to them, if that is the case you can safely keep them, but dont be surprised if some of them are linked to from somewhere you did not think of.
Deleting old pages that is indexed by search engine may lower your hit from search engine, I think - that would be few percents of all your hits per day.
be weary of that one my friend! look at this way how long have those pgs been online? how much pr that pg has? and how many back links are their do your home work"