What SEO tactics are effective for optimising a site where content is changing very frequently (for example an online newspaper)?
-
I have always worked with sites where content has a reasonably long life-span but need to now consider SEO for a site where content is changing very rapidly. I have read that Google will re-spider your content more frequently if it finds that it is changing frequently but are there effective ways to let the search engines know as new articles are published? Also, if content is removed within only a day or two of being published, can this have a negative impact on SEO?
-
Hey,
The same basics apply but I've found that links to the domain and authority of the domain matter more than page authority. In terms of fast indexing, make sure you have an RSS feed. Also, if you are trying to get accepted in to Google News, do make sure you have met those requirements: http://support.google.com/news/publisher/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40787. Having a news specific XML sitemap is also helpful: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74288
Why would you remove the content a day or two after publication? If you have an online newspaper, that content may still be relevant for some time after the original publication date. I've tended to keep news content around years after original publication and still gotten some traffic to those articles.
Given that, I've not has experience removing content that quickly but when I have removed content from news websites, I try to redirect the old url to the most relevant new article (if possible) or news category page (usually easier to do). This preserves link value, which is obviously important. For really old stories that don't have links or traffic, I set the article to return a 410 status on that URL to signal that page is removed permanently. Again though, I'd default to keeping the article around as long as possible.
Hope that helps.
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
-
How to carry across/capture linkjuice during an SEO site migration
Hi there - I am planning out an SEO migration but this thought just occured to me: If the links into a site's previous URL went to the non-canonical version of the domain name - e.g. to: https://theguardian.com/uk and not the correct version of that URL, which is: https://www.theguardian.com/uk Then, if I do a redirect simply from the correct canonical version of the domain:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
https://www.theguardian.com/uk - rather than the versions of the domain that are being pointed to by backlinks - e.g. https://theguardian.com/uk - then the migration will not be carrying across all the linkjuice from the previous site. So how would you suggest dealing with this issue?0 -
Moving multiple Sites to One Site and SEO Impact/Ideas
Hi there, We are in the process of moving 2 sites with higher page authority to another site we own (that is our company brand), so essentially 3 sites into one. We're at risk of losing a lot of SEO from the original 2 sites that have all the product information. We are doing this since we merged companies a couple years back and need one web precense. Anyhow, the site launch date is in 3 months and the recommendation is to start moving content over prior to that for top pages, which is a big undertaking when we are launching all the pages again with new content, redeisgn and moving sites in 3 months. If it's the right move, we should do it, but I just wanted to get opinions on how others have handled something similiar when moving to a site with lower site authority and trying not to lose rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lauramrobinson320 -
Something happened within the last 2 weeks on our WordPress-hosted site that created "duplicates" by counting www.company.com/example and company.com/example (without the 'www.') as separate pages. Any idea what could have happened, and how to fix it?
Our website is running through WordPress. We've been running Moz for over a month now. Only recently, within the past 2 weeks, have we been alerted to over 100 duplicate pages. It appears something happened that created a duplicate of every single page on our site; "www.company.com/example" and "company.com/example." Again, according to our MOZ, this is a recent issue. I'm almost certain that prior to a couple of weeks ago, there existed both forms of the URL that directed to the same page without be counting as a duplicate. Thanks for you help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wzimmer0 -
After Server Migration - Crawling Gets slow and Dynamic Pages wherein Content changes are not getting Updated
Hello, I have just performed doing server migration 2 days back All's well with traffic moved to new servers But somehow - it seems that w.r.t previous host that on submitting a new article - it was getting indexed in minutes. Now even after submitting page for indexing - its taking bit of time in coming to Search Engines and some pages wherein content is daily updated - despite submitting for indexing - changes are not getting reflected Site name is - http://www.mycarhelpline.com Have checked in robots, meta tags, url structure - all remains well intact. No unknown errors reports through Google webmaster Could someone advise - is it normal - due to name server and ip address change and expect to correct it automatically or am i missing something Kindly advise in . Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
HTML5: Changing 'section' content to be 'main' for better SEO relevance?
We received an HTML5 recommendation that we should change onpage text copy contained in 'section" to be listed in 'main' instead, because this is supposedly better for SEO. We're questioning the need to ask developers spend time on this purely for a perceived SEO benefit. Sure, maybe content in 'footer' may be seen as less relevant, but calling out 'section' as having less relevance than 'main'? Yes, it's true that engines evaluate where onpage content is located, but this level of granular focus seems unnecessary. That being said, more than happy to be corrected if there is actually a benefit. On a side note, 'main' isn't supported by older versions of IE and could cause browser incompatibilities (http://caniuse.com/#feat=html5semantic). Would love to hear others' feedback about this - thanks! 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mirabile0 -
Sites in multiple countries using same content question
Hey Moz, I am looking to target international audiences. But I may have duplicate content. For example, I have article 123 on each domain listed below. Will each content rank separately (in US and UK and Canada) because of the domain? The idea is to rank well in several different countries. But should I never have an article duplicated? Should we start from ground up creating articles per country? Some articles may apply to both! I guess this whole duplicate content thing is quite confusing to me. I understand that I can submit to GWT and do geographic location and add rel=alternate tag but will that allow all of them to rank separately? www.example.com www.example.co.uk www.example.ca Please help and thanks so much! Cole
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColeLusby0 -
Site audit and SEO consultation ...who do you recommend?
I am looking to have an SEO specialist to audit and do consultation on one of my sites. This website never received a penalty from Google but was hit algorithmically and I need to bring it back up strong on the serps. Who do you recommend from the "recommended list" from MOZ? Cheers 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mbulox0 -
Steps you can take to ensure your content is indexed and registered to your site before a scraper gets to it?
Hi, A clients site has significant amounts of original content that has blatantly been copied and pasted in various other competitor and article sites. I'm working with the client to rejig lots of this content and to publish new content. What steps would you recommend to undertake when the new, updated site is launched to ensure Google clearly attributes the content to the clients site first? One thing I will be doing is submitting a new xml + html sitemap. Thankyou
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Qasim_IMG0