Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How Are You Handling Blog Posts/Author Pages when Employees Leave the Company?
-
What do you believe to be the best approach in handling blog content for employees once they have left the company? We don’t want to remove the blog posts so they need to stay, but then there are the author pages.
This gets tricky because the CMS ties the blog post to the author.
One approach might be to change the author’s name to the Company’s name to get around author pages for people no longer with the company.
It’s kind of tricky because the blog posts won’t have the same credibility if they don’t have a person’s name/photo associated with the post. We could leave the blogger’s page and list him as a “Contributing Author” once he’s left the company.
Thoughts?
-
Yeps we do the same thing, they won't have access anymore in our CMS so we'll include on their author bio that the editor has left the company and what company they went to work for. In some cases in their new job they also want to contribute and that leaves their (old) content still as it was.
-
I agree. If the author was a talented writer then you will lose the benefit of their authority if you change the attribution to "nobody". If the writer continues to produce good work in the future then you will benefit from the growth of their authority over time.
Google says that someday they will start ranking the works of authoritative writers higher in search.
I have been writing as part of my profession for about 40 years. The first works that I produced still have my name on them. My past employers have not scrubbed my name from my work.
Today, with authorship in Google, your employees might get very angry they see you scrub authorship when someone leaves. If they did good work for you they will want to carry that with them. So, if you want to get the best possible work out of your authors they best not see you scrubbing credit for their work.
Keep in mind that a powerful author leaving your biz and going to your competitor will help your competitor as well.... but at the same time the work that they do for your competitor will also be helping you. Nothing like having a competitor paying for some authority that flows through to your website.
-
Akin to what Keri's said, I don't think there's any reason to change the authorship in your CMS.
Yes, the article(s) may have been written by someone no longer with your company, but it's most likely that their posts are considered intellectual property (IP) owned by your company. If you paid someone to write something, it's yours - barring anything to the contrary in their contract.
-
At Moz, we remove the "staff" sash from an author's profile when they leave, but we don't do anything regarding their posts -- they're all left as-is.
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
-
When to re-write and redirect a blog url?
What are best practices for rewriting (and then redirecting) blog URLs? I refresh old blog posts on our blog every month and many of them have URLs that are too long or could be improved. However, many of them also already get decent organic traffic and I don't want to lose traffic due to a URL redirect. Are there any best practices or "rules" I can follow when deciding whether to re-write and redirect blog URLs?
Content Development | | Emily.R.Monrovia
Thanks!0 -
Internal blog with history and some SEO value versus new external blogs with specialized content?
We operate a blog inside a folder on our site and considering the launch of 4 highly focused blogs with specialized content which are now categories on the internal blog. Wondering if there is more value in using the external new blogs or just keep growing the internal blog content. Does fact that the internal blog is buried amongst millions of pages have any impact if we want the content indexed and value given to the links from the blog content to our main site pages.
Content Development | | CondoRich0 -
Does posting frequency matter?
Right now my company is blogging five days a week, which is way more than our competitors and most other companies do. Back last September, we dropped our blogging frequency to once a week or so, and our organic conversions dropped. I had ascribed that to the drop in our blogging frequency, but now I have my doubts: maybe it was a rise in competition, or part of a larger drop that has been going for over a year and a half. My question to you is: what has been your experience when your posting frequency (or your clients' posting frequency) has dropped? Have you seen a drop in rankings, or have you held fast? Many thanks in advance.
Content Development | | Wagster2 -
Blog.xyz.com
I have a site that is running its blog on www.blog.xyz.com and I am looking for ways to increase Google traffic. Would it be better to running the blog on something like: www.xyz.com/blog instead?
Content Development | | kevgrand0 -
How many words per page?
I know this has been answered before, but I don't think it has been in about a year (and we all know how quickly the SEO landscape can change). We're having a little debate on it right now and I'd be curious to get some feedback from the community. What is the minimum number of words you would use on a page? Does it matter to you if it's a second tier (website.com/x) or third tier (website.com/x/y) page? It's always a tough sell on design between trying to keep it clean and trying to provide a lot of useful information. I'd be curious what your thoughts are. Thanks! -Adam
Content Development | | AdamWormann1 -
Why is redirecting all broken pages to the homepage is a bad idea?
I have a site where all broken pages are redirected to the homepage. I've been told that it's a bad idea in terms of SEO. I just can't figure out why 🙂
Content Development | | VinceWicks0 -
2,500 Word blog post? What's your advice?
Most of my blog posts end up being 400-600 words, sometimes more, sometimes less. I have written one that is 2,500 words this time. If it were you, would you make one huge post, or split it into two or three? Or would you say it wholly depends on my site and the type of content? As far as link bait goes, one page is better . . . I guess. But would anyone ever read a 2,500 word blog post, even it it's about a subject he/she is interested in? Additionally, what's better for SEO? Just wants some second opinions. Thanks!
Content Development | | UnderRugSwept0 -
What are tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 keywords (pages)?
I am seeing these terms, but for the life of mine I can't understand what they are. Could anybody explain that in layman's terms? Thanks.
Content Development | | VinceWicks0