Best practise for updating software guide

[Cairmen]

Heya!

I write a guide for a specific piece of Internet-based software which is about to undergo a major patch release. No-one's going to be using the old version, so my old-version articles are essentially going to be useless, as are keywords related to the old version number.

Given that, I'm intending to update all my guides to be current with the new version. However, obviously I want to keep the Google juice for the old guides, as they rank pretty well.

The three options I'm considering:

1. Simply retitle the old guides to the latest version number - "How to use Blue Widget 2.0" becomes "How to use Blue Widget 3.0". Disadvantage - my URLs still include the old version number, 2.0.

2. Write updated guides as seperate articles and 301 redirect the old articles to them. I've done this before with some success. So, I'd 301 the URL for "How to use Blue Widget 2.0" to the url for "How to use Blue Widget 3.0", my new article. Disadvantages - possible loss of link juice? Also, I believe redirects can be kinda tricksy.

3. Just leave both the old and new versions up there, with a link from the old version saying "outdated, check the new version". My belief is that this would be the worst idea.

Should I do one of them, or something else? And why?

[Cairmen]

Thanks, that's very interesting.

One question - if most of the incoming searches use the version number in the search term ("blue widget guide 3.0") would you still advise just changing the title? Obviously the URL will still have the old version number in it.

[steffen_]

Hi,

our experience with updating page-titles is the following: Minor changes like switching 2.0 to 3.0 will not have negative impact.

301 should keep link-juice but there is a potential risk to loose some rankings.

To avoid duplicate content problems I cannot recommend your last option.

Due to the last google-freshness update I believe updating the document, title and keep old URL without redirecting will be the best soultion.

Best regards

Steffen