Dealing with updating blog posts
-
I run a travel and culture blog which means that I write about a lot of upcoming events which recur each year. Usually I title (and slug) the page with the event name and date.
When it comes to update the article the next year, sometimes it's as little as changing the date, other times more has changed and it needs to be substantially re-written.
Until now, what I've done is update the title, content, and then re-posted (sometimes altering the slug where it's needed to be done). Sometimes it works fine and Google keeps me ranking well, but other times the changes dont get such a great response.
I have these options (as far as I can see). Which do you think is best?
1. To create a new article each year and put a message at the start of the previous one to say, click here to read about the 2012 event
2. To continue what I'm doing updating, changing the slug, and re-posting (ie changing the date).
3. To write a new article and insert a 301 redirect.
I need to make sure the article appears as a new article in my RSS feed and also on the homepage.
Look forward to your ideas!
Thanks
-
Wow - now I feel like my idea has been blessed by a god (Lead SEO at SEOMoz).....feeling quite chuffed actually!
-
That sounds like a great idea. I'll try it. I have a fair number of readers coming through the RSS feed so don't really want to lose that.
I'll try it and let you guys know!
-
I like Gary's suggestion - having one page for the event over multiple years means that you're not creating a new page every time, so the page can continue to benefit from the links it accrues year over year (changing the slug means the post loses its link equity every time).
I can't find any statement from Google saying that changing the publish date of a piece of content isn't allowed when the content is updated. I think in this case it should be fine since your intent isn't to manipulate - it's an update page and a new post.
The other solutions would be to redirect all of your past event pages to the new one every time you make a new one - this would preserve a portion of your link equity - or not to update the publish date (I don't know how much traffic you get from RSS readers so that would be your call).
-
Ok. Thanks anyway!
Anyone?
-
I wasn't aware the Google didn't like a modified "published date" perhaps someone with more knowledge on that than me can help? Sorry, I believe in "knowing your limits" and I have no personal experience with that being a problem (I am not saying it is not, just that I don't know!).
-
Thanks for the reply
I dont necessarily need to keep previous years content - the issue with that way is that to get the updated post to go into the RSS I'd need to play with the publish date and that isn't something Google likes, right?
Thanks
-
How about you maintain a single "page", i.e. a consistent URL for the "current year", so a slug of something like
-my-event-event-name (no dates or anything like that in the slug) then each year
1.) Put the new/revised content on that URL. Include the year in title, content, description etc.
2.) Create a new post and copy the last year's content to that one including the historic date and link to it (if you want) so a URL a bit like -my-event-event-name-2011
That way, you always have the latest content on a consistent URL. You can then maintain all the links you accrue over time to a single URL, just update content each year and store all of the past posts on "newly created" URLS each year. No matter whether they rank or not, presumably....
Gary
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
-
My organic search dropped over 25% since March Update....Any insights?
My website is purecbdvapors.com. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Anthony
On-Page Optimization | | Purecbdvapors0 -
Blog Site Set-Up/Frequency
Hello! I am a new blogger that is just getting started. All I have done so far is purchase a domain name and signed up with Blue Host. From what I am reading, WordPress seems to be the most recommended plug-in to get going. There is a lot of material out there on SEO and I wanted the community's thoughts on where to start. My blog is intended to provide readers with information on a particular topic. It is a vast area with much to write about - I intend on populating the content myself/with the help of experts in the field. It is not news so it is not time sensitive. Here are my questions: 1. As this is a brand new site, should I be blogging every day or is couple of times a week sufficient? I am able to produce content fairly quickly in the beginning as there is a lot to write about. Should I write a whole lot of content first and then release it on a schedule (twice a week, daily, etc.)? As it is a new site, I don't want it to launch with just one article.. 2. I am taking a WordPress class next week, but as someone that is not too familiar with copy/backlinks, other mechanisms to boost SEO. does WordPress make it easy enough to optimize your site for search results or does it require more expertise? As far as I see, my first tasks are to 1. ) set up the site effectively so people can find it and 2.) create valuable/engaging content. Appreciate any advice on setting up the site, blogging frequency, other tips to get going. I don't want to launch a site and get dinged by Google for reasons I am unware of..At some point, when I have a robust set of content, I am thinking of FB advertising to increase traffic to the site. Seems a bit premature to do that at this point.. Thanks all in advance for your feedback!
On-Page Optimization | | mmprakash0 -
How to overcome blog page 1, 2, 3, etc having no or duplicate meta info?
As the above what is the best way to overcome having the same meta info on your blog pages (not blog posts) So if you have 25 blog posts per page once you exceed this number you then move onto a second blog page, then when you get to 50 you then move onto a 3rd blog page etc etc So if you have thousands f blog pages what is the best method to deal with this rather than having to write 100s of different meta titkes & descriptions? Cheers
On-Page Optimization | | webguru20141 -
How to deal with 404 errors from deleted categories?
I was reorganizing my blog and deleted several categories. Of course now Google Webmasters is coming up with a bunch of 404 errors. How do I fix this?
On-Page Optimization | | blogger20130 -
How to force a refresh after on-page optimisation update
After updating areas highlighted in the On-Page Optimization report even after clicking the [Grade My On-page Optimization] the results don't refresh or reflect the changes eg The h1 tag does include the exact search term and there is bolded examples of the keyword phrase but report says not! Is there a way to force an update or is it a time related issue?
On-Page Optimization | | RobWillox0 -
I run a Q&A site, should I limit post questions to 64 characters?
I run a Q&A site (Recessionitis.com), should I limit posts (questions) to 64 characters for SEO purposes?
On-Page Optimization | | 10JQKAs0 -
Best SEO structure for blog
What is the best SEO page/link structure for a blog with, say 100 posts that grows at a rate of 4 per month? Each post is 500+ words with charts/graphics; they're not simple one paragraph postings. Rather than use a CMS I have a hand crafted HTML/CSS blog (for tighter integration with the parent site, some dynamic data effects, and in general to have total control). I have a sidebar with headlines from all prior posts, and my blog home page is a 1 line summary of each article. I feel that after 100 articles the sidebar and home page have too many links on them. What is the optimal way to split them up? They are all covering the same niche topic that my site is about. I thought of making the side bar and home page only have the most recent 25 postings, and then create an archive directory for older posts. But categorizing by time doesn't really help someone looking for a specific topic. I could tag each entry with 2-3 keywords and then make the sidebar a sorted list of tags. Clicking on a tag would then show an intermediate index of all articles that have that tag, and then you could click on an article title to read the whole article. Or is there some other strategy that is optimal for SEO and the indexing robots? Is it bad to have a blog that is too heirarchical (where articles are 3 levels down from the root domain) or too flat (if there are 100s of entries)? Thanks for any thoughts or pointers.
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0 -
Does Frequency of content updates affect likelyhood outbound links will be indexed?
I have several pages on our website with low pr, that also themselves link to lots and lots of pages that are service/product specific. Since there are so many outbound links, I know that the small amount of PR will be spread thin as it is. My question is, if I were to supply fresh content to the top level pages, and change it often, would that influence whether or not google indexes the underlying pages? Also if I supply fresh content to the underlying pages, once google crawls them, would that guarantee that google considers them 'important' enough to be indexed" I guess my real question is, can freshness of content and frequency of update convince google that the underlying pages are 'worthy of being indexed', and can producing fresh content on those pages 'keep google's interest', so to speak, despite having little if any pagerank.
On-Page Optimization | | ilyaelbert0