What do I do about old content on my blog?
-
I run a blog: www.b2bsocialmediaguide.com. It's been going for 2.5 years and some of the old content is, frankly, dated! What do you recommend I do about it?
1. Update old articles with new, more relevant content and change the date?
2. Write new articles with the relevant content and forward the URLs from old articles to the new ones?
3. Do nothing.
4. Just add links to new content from old posts?
I don't want to lose link juice!
-
Thumbs up if you agree this would make a great YouMoz post. We'd love to see you other there too, if you're ever inclined.
-
Keep your old posts. There is nothing wrong with having a historical account of your topic. I can't stand everyone freaking out about old content and simply getting rid of it. Aren't there any historians still out there that enjoy examining where we've been?
Do this:
- Create new updated post that is current and represents how you want to present the info today
- Go to your old post and add a IMPORTANT Notice box at the top of the article that explains that things have changed since the original posting and visitors can find all the latest and greatest at the new URL (link).
This also protects your credibility and demonstrates how long you have been following your issues in your niche - golden!
-
I don't want to lose link juice!
Absolutely! And wasting content is even worse.
I would do #5.
5. Assess the content to determine it's value. Value to me includes....
-- are there links pointing to this content?
-- is there traffic arriving through these pages?
-- are visitors who arrive at my site through other pages consuming this content?
-- the quality of the content
After I assess the items above I will take different routes depending upon the findings.
A. If content does not have links, does not pull traffic and is not being consumed I will probably delete the content and redirect the page to index.html
B. If content has links, traffic and consumption then I will decide if it merely needs a few edits. If that can be done I will keep the page. And, if that can be done I will look to add improved images, special interest boxes, "Did you know?" boxes, links to other relevant pages on my website. KICK IT UP A NOTCH!
C. If content has links, traffic and consumption, AND THE SAME TITLE IS STILL A GREAT CHOICE... but the article is really outdated then I will rewrite from scratch and post on the same page, always trying to kick content, images and message up a huge notch on this successful page. Then I will promote this major rewrite on my homepage, in feature boxes around the site, in my RSS feed.
D. If content has links traffic and consumption, and the old title is no longer a good choice, then I will rewrite from scratch, publish on a new page and create a boldface roadblock link to it in the first few paragraphs of the old article... and do the full onsite promotion. Eventually when traffic to old page starts dying then I will redirect. I want to keep the traffic from that old title flowing in because some noobs, old farts and out-of-date people will still be searching for those out-of-date terms. Conversion rate on these people can be good because they are looking for help or a book or someone (like you) to be their guru. Also, with this choice you now have TWO pages pulling traffic for different search queries.
You see, there is no generic answer to this question. You must assess on a case-by-case basis. Be careful not to abandon the noobs, old farts and out-of-date people. They can be valuable traffic.
-
Hi Heather,
Rand had an article on just this topic for a Whiteboard Friday, well worth a read:
http://moz.com/blog/how-to-move-rankings-up-on-older-existing-content-whiteboard-friday
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Facebook Share Percentage - On Blog Posts
Hi everyone, I'm trying to find a way to give each post we are creating a quality status. Since bounce rate on this case isn't really a viable option (Blog Behavior) since people could stay 10 mins reading it and then go elsewhere without interacting. I'm looking for a way to focus on facebook sharing, lets say something simple like "Facebook Shares / Sessions" per each blog post, while I can have an idea on my own data, lets say my highest is 4.1% of all people that go to that post end it up sharing it. But I wonder on average what would you consider a good engagement post, what would that percentage might be? Thanks in advance.
Social Media | | JoaoCJ0 -
Blog posts copied to Facebook or Linked? Any Duplicate Content Issues?
I wasnt able to find any good answers on this. I have two separate ecommerce websites, one with a top level blog. (www.xyz.com/blog) and different website with a subdomain blog (blog.xyz.com)***note on the subdomain blog, although it links to our website. You cannot directly shop from it. Until i can make some sort of scraper, its what I have to work with. For quite some time now I have been copying the blog posts and re-creating them on facebook as a Note. Using the same anchor text/links on facebook as my blog post. Part of the issue is that I want the facebook pages to have some content and not just links. Both get 2-3 updates per week, 1 of those being a blog re-post. Does anyone know if google or bing considers this duplicate content? Should I simply link directly to the blog everytime, as a best practice? Any insight on this would be great. Thanks!
Social Media | | Southbay_Carnivorous_Plants0 -
In 2013 is guest blogging a worthwhile activity?
Guest blogging is one of the activities I’ve never undertaken only because I went down the avenue of thinking if you go to the time and effort of producing great content why would you want it to be on someone else’s site when it could be on yours. The only reason I’m thinking about undertaking guest blogging now is because with social media becoming more prominent and indeed I found it to be very useful, I can see the logic that if you have got a niche of expertise to write about and you find good quality websites that will accept your guest blogs maybe that is a productive thing to do by attracting relevant traffic and also producing quality links to your website Have you got any experience of Guest blogging recently? Would you spend your precious time writing for your own website or spend some of that time guest blogging on good quality related websites? And if so what you see the main advantage is being?
Social Media | | whitbycottages0 -
301 redirect for blog post URL change
I'm thinking about changing the URL for a new blog post that I have already promoted off-site today. I overlooked a detail and am gently kicking myself. I can't determine if it's worth any negative issues that adjusting it might create vs the value of having a more "perfect" URL. Would it be OK to do this by applying a 301 redirect to the page? Would this be the right thing to do or is there some other way? Thanks!!
Social Media | | gfiedel0 -
Value in content from website being shared across social media?
If I write content (small career advice quotes) on my website and I distribute across Twitter and FB I assume my site will get the full credit (from an SEO perspective) since that is where the content was originally uploaded. However, will I still get SEO credit for being active on social media, or will Google view it as duplicate content and evaluate that I am not active on social media? thank you
Social Media | | knielsen0 -
Is it worth setting up a Google Plus page for your blog?
Hi All, OK we all know the merit in G+, Authorship etc. I'm a regular user on G+ and I work hard to keep my profile up to date and with fresh content. I have no doubt my increased number of followers has helped my blog rank (which my G+ account is linked to). My question is - is there any merit at all in setting up a separate page for my blog so I can get +1s for it (probably very few). Much like any company page that gets +1s and people to follow that company. Or is this just plain silly and I should concentrate on building my personal profile? Thanks
Social Media | | bradkrussell0 -
Setting Up Author Tags on Wordpress Blog
Hi, I am trying to set up author tags on my Wordpress blog (http://www.bradkrussell.com.au) so that my author profile shows in Google SERPs. I'm following Yoast's article - http://yoast.com/wordpress-rel-author-rel-me/ - and I did everything up to the "How to allow authors to add rel="me" to links in their bio's" section. Basically, in Wordpress under Appearance -> Menus for the About Me page I set 'link relationship' = author. Then on my Google + page (https://plus.google.com/u/0/110649694696756559049/posts) under the 'Contributor To' section on the About tab I linked back to the About Me page on my blog. Upon checking on Google Australia it appears that this was done correctly - https://www.google.com.au/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=site%3Abradkrussell.com.au. My questions are: Do I need to link back to my About Me page from every post I do? E.g. 'Written by Brad Russell' - linking to About Me. It appears I don't but does it help? Some of the results on Google Australia show 'By Brad Russell' but some don't. I'm just not sure if this is because the site hasn't been reindexed properly yet. What happens if in the future I have multiple authors on my blog? I give them a new username in Wordpress but how do I specify that they are the author of the post? Do I need to create an 'Authors' section on my site? If I then specify an Authors page as link relationship = author, how do I link each post to the necessary author page? I still don't really understand the rel=me tag and how I implement it on Wordpress. I'm not sure how to edit the functions.php and author.php files on Wordpress (ie the second half of Yoast's article). Many thanks!
Social Media | | bradkrussell0 -
If I move my blog from subdomain to root, will my blog lose all of its authority? Social signals?
Moving my blog from blog.site.co.uk to site.co.uk/blog and just wondered if all the social data for each post will be lost including the blog authority which has been built up over time? Is 301 redirects enough to keep any of it?
Social Media | | SDOwner0