What is the best way to deal with a page that turns out to be a "dud"?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Chris M Cloutier: What is the best way to deal with a page that turns out to be a "dud?"
  
  For example, I created a page to help users, but no one ever used it.  ;I don't want to leave it there, in the navigation, and I probably won't link to it.  ;So what's the best thing to do with it?
  Thanks,
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  eBizWebpages: Hello Chris,
  
  You say the page is a dud because nobody ever used it. How do you know that? Then the next question is, why do you think it never got used?
  
  More questions come to mind. Is the page indexed? Does it have any backlinks?
  
  If you need the space in your site navigation then just take the page out. But don't delete it if others have linked to it just as a courtesy.
  
  - Eric W.
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  Marta Gryszko: For the SEO purposes, I would check if there are some backlinks to this page. If not, then I would think about removing it and leaving with 404. If I found backlinks, in order to save their link juice, I would set 301 to the home page or another page on similar topic.
  
  But if this page can really help users, maybe you should link it from another part of your website? The one that can cause problems and when they need them to be solved.
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  Chris M Cloutier: +eBizWebpages ;When I made the page I was still trying to learn the audience for the site.  ;It was catered to total newbies and it ended up being folks with a little more knowledge coming to the site.  ;As far as I know it has no backlinks.  ;It's not that I need the space, just worried about having a page on the site no one ever uses.
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  Chris M Cloutier: +Marta Gryszko ;I was thinking about that, doing a 404.  ;I've heard that abandoned pages that never get visited can cause problems with SEO and that's the last thing I want.  ;I'm afraid I remove from the menu and just leave it kinda "floating around" Google will ding me for it.  ;It would be nice to keep it, just not in the main nav.  ;
• 
  W.E. Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 01:20:10 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/what_is_the_best_way_to_deal_with_a_page_that_turned_out_to_be_a_quotdudquot
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  Chris M Cloutier: Wow that was quick!  ;I thought it'd be next week before they got to this one.  ;Thanks +W.E. Jonk ;  ;Also thanks to +Jim Munro ; ;
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  eBizWebpages: +Chris M Cloutier ;I'm curious, where did you hear that pages that don't get visits can cause SEO problems?
  
  I'd like to hear more from others about that as well, if it is or isn't valid. ;
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  Chris M Cloutier: +eBizWebpages ;Not necessarily pages that don't get visits, but pages that don't get linked to from other pages internally.  ;I was under the assumption that when folks don't visit a page and it doesn't get linked to, Google looks at it as an "abandoned" page, then they start to devalue the page and the site its on.  ;I don't remember where I heard it.  ;Maybe I just misunderstood something I was reading and jumped to conclusions.
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  eBizWebpages: +Chris M Cloutier ;That's interesting and I never even considered something like that as possible. It wouldn't surprise me if it was being done.
  
  However, I suspect that it's not. It just seems too subjective. I can think of lots of reasons to have a page that isn't included in the site navigation and has no backlinks. Google doesn't need to know what those reasons are and shouldn't be penalizing the site if it happens to find a page that isn't linked to from anywhere else, either before or after they found it.
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  Chris M Cloutier: Yeah i think you're right.  ;It did seem a little unfair to me, but ya' never know with Google.  ;I appreciate your help.  ;Thanks