Updating Old Posts
-
I have ~ 45 posts that I wrote 2-3 years ago that need to be updated with current information and I'm wondering if I should:
-
Just update them
-
Update them and change the date published to present day
-
Publish the updated info. as a completely new post
-
other?
... and why.
I've read so many conflicting thoughts on this, really curious to hear what other Pro members think (or would do if it were them).
To give a little more background, the topics of the posts are various retirement communities. Things that may have changed could be they added new amenities, new home types, prices, number of homes still available, etc.
I have one page of my site that acts as sort of a directory linking to an article(post) for each community, but worried if I add all the updates as new posts I'll have to link to separate articles about each community which doesn't really make things too friendly for the reader. They want to know about what's going on with each community now...not back 3 years ago.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Many thanks!
Ryan
-
-
Solid points. Thank you Ryan!
-
I would update the existing posts, and change the post date to the day you update them. Because these aren't really news articles or blog posts, they should go into the same post, not a new one. And because the information is current as of the day you update, if you have the date on the page it may as well reflect the date of the information. Having it current will probably help you rank better too, since current info will be more valuable to searchers than info 3 years old.
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
-
Old domain to new domain what happens to the old site?
Hello We rebranded 5 months ago, and set up a new domain for the new brand name which sits on different hosting to the old. We still have the old hosting running with the old site still on it. We have set up redirects to the new domain and wondered when/if we can turn off the old site hosting?
On-Page Optimization | | Scivisum0 -
How to handle outdated, unoptimized blog posts receiving little or zero traffic?
I'm doing some overdue spring cleaning on our WP blog. Some big visual updates are in the works, but currently I'm working on pruning and updating some poopy and outdated content. Many of the older posts weren't written with SEO in mind and were posted to the blog merely as an extension of our monthly enewsletter. Here's an example: http://pq.systems/2FkQyVG This post needs a lot of work to meet our new standards. The content is thin, readability is weak, kw targetting is non-existant, the visuals suck, zero links, and the charting software mentioned has since been replaced with another solution that we are currently promoting. There are quite a few other posts with similar issues... Any thoughts on the best way to handle these posts? From poking around similar Q&A threads, it seems my options are: Create new updated post, remove old post, 301 redirect from old to new Create new updated post, add blurb & link pointing to new post at the top of old post Edit/update old post, add "This post was updated....etc" blurb to top of old post Any other options or opinions on which solution I should go with would be much appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | SamKlep0 -
To change or not to change. DO we update our HTTP page to HTTPS? especially those with basic forms (phone, email, name)??
I recently went to a conference where a speaker strongly urged us to migrate to HTTPS before January 2017. I don't see any other sites referencing to make the switch before January 2017. whats the deal? 😉
On-Page Optimization | | millenniumsi0 -
Updated page not ranking.
Hi Guys. Bit flummoxed by this. I've recently updated our Mid year diaries page to be this years mid year products. i.e) Diaries that go from 2015-16 not 2014-15. Last year we rank really well for the search term 'mid year diaries 14-15'. All i've done is update the page to be focused on 2015-16 diaries, but when i type in 'mid year diaries 15-16' it's no where to be seen in the SERP. Even our home page is ranking higher! I'm really puzzled about this, nothings changed apart from the year! The only reason I can think of is that Google is reading the file name of the images which are related to lasts years products? For example the file name might say mid year diary 2014-15. Do you think this is what's effecting us? Very puzzling 😕 I've submitted it through Webmaster tool btw 🙂 Isaac.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
Crawl Diagnostics Updates
I have several page types on my sites that I have blocked using the robots.txt file (ex: emailafriend.asp, shoppingcart.asp, login.asp), but they are still showing up in crawl diagnostics as issues (ex: duplicate page content, duplicate title tag, etc). Is there a way to filter these issues or perhaps there is something I'm doing wrong resulting in the issues that are showing up? Ryan
On-Page Optimization | | ryanforrest0 -
Old landing page modifications - should I change the content?
One of our most popular landing page is starting to be a little bit out dated, should I keep the old content and update with newer text or is it safe to completely replace the old content with the new content without losing our organic traffic on this page?
On-Page Optimization | | rusted880 -
Should press releases be posted on my site before released to wire?
Should I wait until my press release has been syndicated to post to my press page. If I post it to my press page first, will it cause a duplication problem?
On-Page Optimization | | BradBorst0 -
Google webmaster tools data update frequency?
What is the lag time for changes to a site to be reflected in Google webmaster tools Diagnostics section? They pointed out some duplicate titles which I fixed a week ago and yet they still show up as an HTML Suggestion. What has your experience been with making changes and then seeing them reflected in the HTML Suggestions section? My site is crawled every day, including the pages I have updated with new titles. Seems like it takes a while for the data to trickle into Webmaster tools, no?
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0