Updating existing content - good or bad?
-
Hi All,
There are many situations where I encounter the need (or the wish) to update existing content.
Here are few reasons:
- Some update turned up on the subject that does not justify a new posy / article but rather just adding two lines.
- The article was simply poorly written yet the page has PR as it is a good subject and is online for quite some time (alternatively I can create a new and improved article and 301 the old one to the new).
- Improving titles and sub titles of old existing articles.
I would love to hear your thoughts on each of the reasons...
Thanks
-
Wikipedia updates content all the time and they seem to rank rather well.
From google's perspective they would rather rank up-to-date content, so yes its got to be a good idea to update. An old page might have links to it, and history with google, so if it had up to date content its got to be better than a brand new page.
-
In all the 3 cases mentioned in the post, this seems like it is a good idea not to create new posts/pages and update the existing one. Obviously if the article is poorly written so in that case one should update the page after fixing the content of it instead of creating new pages... same is the case for the other 2 scenarios.
I think this video by SEOmoz contains your answer >> http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-interview-googles-matt-cutts-on-redirects-trust-more
Hope this helps!
-
- hi Fernando,
long time no see.
The site as a tool that is technically accurate however I just want to point out that if you don't have the tag obviously your link will not qualify but you don't need new hosting as it states here
Here's the example of a tagged link that was done appropriately
http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/if-modified/
here's an example of what happens when I put my homepage and with obviously no tag
Does your webpage support the If Modified Since HTTP header?
enter URL: example - www.feedthebot.comNo.
This website does not support the if modified since http header. Scroll down for details.Technical stuff:
This tool checked your HTTP headers and received this response ...
Server Response HTTP/1.1 200 OK
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: WP Engine/1.2.0
Date: Thu, 02 May 2013 03:57:11 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: keep-alive
Keep-Alive: timeout=20
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Pragma: no-cache
X-Pingback: http://www.blueprintmarketing.com/xmlrpc.php
X-UA-Compatible: IE=Edge,chrome=1
X-Cacheable: SHORT
Vary: Accept-Encoding,Cookie
Cache-Control: max-age=600, must-revalidate
X-Cache: HIT: 13
X-Cache-Group: normal
X-Type: default
There does not appear to be a "last modified header response"Therefore, this tool has determined that this URL does not support if modified since.
Web hosts who do support If Modified Since...
We use and recommend using BlueHost for your hosting needs -
here is some more information on if modified since
http://www.seomoz.org/q/is-the-if-modified-since-http-header-still-relevant
it seems you want to pay a lot of attention when implementing it to the clock on the server as well as on the actual workstation.
http://redmine.lighttpd.net/boards/2/topics/1999
http://trac.nginx.org/nginx/ticket/93
I hope this is of help,
Tom
-
If you are just updating the title, or rewriting the content, then I would go with the same page instead of creating a new one.
IF-MODIFIED-SINCE is the way of telling spiders that the content has/hasn't changed. You can read more here: http://www.feedthebot.com/ifmodified.html
-
Actually does sound familiar somehow even though I know most people are creating new post stating about the change and point to the old one (if there is enough to cover).
What about poorly written articles? Improving titles?
Please explain what you mean by "IF-MODIFIED-SINCE"?
Thanks
-
Matt Cutts from Google pointed out in a WH video that you should update instead of creating new pages with only the updates.
You can point in the old page that the content was updated using "IF-MODIFIED-SINCE".
I can't find the video right now, but I am sure he did say that
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
-
Content update on 24hr schedule
Hello! I have a website with over 1300 landings pages for specific products. These individual pages update on a 24hr cycle through out API. Our API pulls reviews/ratings from other sources and then writes/updates that content onto the page. Is that 'bad"? Can that be viewed as spammy or dangerous in the eyes of google? (My first thought is no, its fine) Is there such a thing as "too much content". For example if we are adding roughly 20 articles to our site a week, is that ok? (I know news websites add much more than that on a daily basis but I just figured I would ask) On that note, would it be better to stagger our posting? For example 20 articles each week for a total of 80 articles, or 80 articles once a month? (I feel like trickle posting is probably preferable but I figured I would ask.) Is there any negatives to the process of an API writing/updating content? Should we have 800+ words of static content on each page? Thank you all mozzers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Content question please help
Would content behind a drop down on this site Https://www.homeleisuredirect.com/pool_tables/english_pool_tables/ you have to click the - more about English pool tables text under the video Work just as well for SEO as content on the page like this site http://www.pooltablesonline.co.uk/uk-slate-bed-pool-tables.asp
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Galleries and duplicate content
Hi! I am now studing a website, and I have detected that they are maybe generating duplicate content because of image galleries. When they want to show details of some of their products, they link to a gallery url
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite
something like this www.domain.com/en/gallery/slide/101 where you can find the logotype, a full image and a small description. There is a next and a prev button over the slider. The next goes to the next picture www.domain.com/en/gallery/slide/102 and so on. But the next picture is in a different URL!!!! The problem is that they are generating lots of urls with very thin content inside.
The pictures have very good resolution, and they are perfect for google images searchers, so we don't want to use the noindex tag. I thought that maybe it would be best to work with a single url with the whole gallery inside it (for example, the 6 pictures working with a slideshow in the same url ), but as the pictures are very big, the page weight would be greater than 7 Mb. If we keep the pictures working that way (different urls per picture), we will be generating duplicate content each time they want to create a gallery. What is your recommendation? Thank you!0 -
No PageRank but good Moz stats?
Hi, Why would a website with good Moz stats such as DA/PA 45, mR/mT 5.0+ have 0 PageRank? Have these sites done something? I have seen some sites with similar Moz stats have PR3/4 and when I have checked a year later the PR has dropped to 0. Does that indicate Google has hit those sites and removed their PageRank? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bondara0 -
Faceted Navigation and Dupe Content
Hi, We have a Magento website using layered navigation - it has created a lot of duplicate content and I did ask Google in GWT to "No URLS" most of the querystrings except the "p" which is for pagination. After reading how to tackle this issue, I tried to tackle it using a combination of Meta Noindex, Robots, Canonical but still it was a snowball I was trying to control. In the end, I opted for using Ajax for the layered navigation - no matter what option is selected there is no parameters latched on to the url, so no dupe/near dupe URL's created. So please correct me if I am wrong, but no new links flow to those extra URL's now so presumably in due course Google will remove them from the index? Am I correct in thinking that? Plus these extra URL's have Meta Noindex on them too - I still have tens of thousands of pages indexed in Google. How long will it take for Google to remove them from index? Will having Meta No Index on the pages that need to be removed help? Any other way of removing thousands of URLS from GWT? Thanks again, B
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
First link importance in the content
Hi, have you guys an opinion on this point, mentioned by Matt Cutts in 2010 : Matt made a point to mention that users are more likely to click on the first link in an article as opposed to a link at the bottom of the article. He said put your most important links at the top of the article. I believe it was Matt hinting to SEOs about this. http://searchengineland.com/key-takeaways-from-googles-matt-cutts-talk-at-pubcon-55457 I've asked this in private and Michael Cottam told me he read a study a year ago that indicated that the link juice passed to other pages diminished the further down the page you go. But he can't find it anymore ! Do you remember this study and have the link ? What is your opinion on Matt's point ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | baptisteplace0 -
Feedback about Bad Behavior Plugin
Hi Guys, I wanted to use this Wordpress plugin to minimize the access of spammers on my site. The plugin is called Bad Behavior. Any feedback with regards to this if its safe to use? Thanks in advance....
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trigun0 -
Duplicate Content On A Subdomain
Hi, We have a client who is currently close to completing a site specifically aimed at the UK market (they're doing this in-house so we've had no say in how it will work). The site will almost be a duplicate (in terms of content, targeted keywords etc.) of a section of the main site (that sits on the root domain) - the main site is targeted toward the US. The only difference will be certain spellings and currency type. If this new UK site were to sit on a sub domain of the main site, which is a .com, will this cause duplicate content issues? I know that there wouldn't be an issue if the new site were to be on a separate .co.uk domain (according to Matt Cutts), but it looks like the client wants it to be on a sub domain. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasarrow0