SEO value of old press releases (as content)?
-
Howdy Moz Community,
I'm working with a client on migrating content to a new site/CMS and am wondering whether anyone has thoughts on the value of old press releases. I'm familiar with the devaluation of press release links from early 2013, but I'm wondering more about their value as content. Does importing old press releases (3-5 years old) create contextual depth of content that has some value for the site as a whole (even though the news contained within is useless)? Or, do these old press releases just create clutter and waste time (in migration). The site has a wealth of additional content (articles and videos), so the press releases wouldn't be covering up for thin content. I'm just wondering whether there's any best practices or a general rule of thumb.
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Samuel. Definitely some good questions, and a few I hadn't already asked myself. I've made an effort to save press releases where there is definite long tail value. I also agree that point #2 about institutional knowledge is a big one. There are about 1,500 pieces of content in the audit and maybe 1/5-1/4 of that is press releases (dating back as far as 2006), so I won't have time to check all of them for external links, but that's definitely something I hadn't thought about, so I might have to figure out how to work some of that into the timeline. Thanks again.
-
Sorry to respond to your question with a set of questions, but there are some things to consider because the old press releases may provide value in ways that might not be obvious. I'd ask yourself or the client these things:
1. Public companies are required to report and archive company news and financial information. If its a public company, then I'd keep them because press releases are a way to satisfy this legal requirement.
2. Is there even a small chance that the releases would need to be cited for something? Say a customer or reporter asks a question (over e-mail or on social media or something) -- it could be answered by sending a link to an old press release. Plus, old information can always be valuable for "institutional knowledge" -- say a bunch of longtime employees leave, then new hires could read them to get up to speed on what the company has done in the past.
3. Might the press releases contain text that could be found in relevant, long-tail searches? If so, I'd keep them.
4. Are there external links to the press releases (check Open Site Explorer or similar tools)? If so, I'd keep them (and obviously 301 redirect the links to the new site).
These are just a few issues off the top of my head. In general, I think that there's never a case when a website can have too much information or content (as long as it's managed well). Unless you're talking about hundreds of pages, I don't see how a migration would be too much of a pain. Plus, it's always good to have extensive company archives because, well, you never know!
I can tell you that the old press releases on my company's site get a bit of traffic -- both straight from organic search and from people navigating there from other pages. I'm sure the same is true for most sites.
Again, this is just my two cents. Whatever you end up doing, good luck!
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 solve duplicate content issue???
I have 5 websites with different domain names, every website have same content, same pages, same website design. Kindly let me know how to solve this issue.
On-Page Optimization | | ross254sidney0 -
Would a free PDF download diminish SEO benefits of HTML content?
Hello, I am doing SEO for a company that, as a sideline business, sells four books written by the principals; the content is directly relevant to the company's primary business focus. Book sales are a tiny fraction of our overall revenue, and we don't expect that to change, although we will continue to sell the books. In addition to selling them, we have decided to convert the books to HTML and post them for free on our website (laid out by chapter and section). The hope is that this will result in goodwill, links, traffic, and ultimately improved search rankings. My question: Would offering free PDF downloads of the books (in addition to posting the HTML content) diminish the SEO benefits of the HTML content? If we don't offer the PDF option, people would have to visit our site to read the content (unless they bought a hard copy). If visitors were able to download a free PDF, they wouldn't need to return to our site to read it. If our corporate clients (nearly all of our clients are corporations) could download a PDF, they could then post it on an intranet instead of posting a link to our site. In general, do you think a visitor would be less likely to link to our site if he or she were able to download the PDF? Or would the appeal of the PDF option make it more likely that people would visit and link to the site? Also, if we offer the PDF option, are there any SEO issues related to duplicate content? Finally, if we did offer the free PDF download, would you recommend that we ask for an email address before giving the PDF? Thank you very much!
On-Page Optimization | | nyc-seo0 -
The value of changing URL structure
Dear Moz members, There have been many questions on this forum on this topic but I cannot find one that completely answers my question. We launched our new website about 7 months ago and the website contains around 3.000 product pages. The average page authority of the product pages is quite still quite low (12). The URL structure is built like this: www.website.com/catalog/ID/productname/ (with right keywords in the product name). So e.g the current URL is Our competitors rank higher on certain keywords while page authority (and DA) are significantly lower. Their URL structure is set up like this: www.website.com/productname/. Our most import keyword is "grafmonumenten" and the link we would like to rank on is: https://www.denhollandsche.nl/grafmonumenten/ My question now is:
On-Page Optimization | | stepsstones
1: how important is the length/depth of the URL structure?
2: is it beneficial for us to change the structure (www.website.com/productname/) use permanent redirects? My expierence is that changing the 'page url' can cause a short term drop in the serps, but can have positive effects on the longer term. Thanks for helping me out!0 -
Left Nav / SEO
We are in the middle of a redesign and would love to get rid of our left navigation. It's currently full of SEO rich categories and has been the same for 10+ years. Our programmers think removing the left navigation will have no impact on our SEO. As SEO's, do you agree with this?
On-Page Optimization | | EileenCleary0 -
What Should I Do With Low Quality Content?
As my site has definitely got hit by Panda, I am in the process of cleaning my website of low quality content. Needless to say, shitty articles are completed being removed but I think lots of this content is now of low quality because it is obsolete and dated. So what should I do with this content? Should I rewrite those articles as completely new posts and link from the old posts to the new ones? Or should I delete the old posts and do a 301 redirect to the new post? Or should I rewrite the content of these articles in place so I can keep the old URL and backlinks? One thing is that I've got a lot more followers than I used to so publishing a new post gets a lot more views, like and shares and whatnot from social networks.
On-Page Optimization | | sbrault741 -
SEO and PDFs
Hi there, how could I incorpore the PDF's documents of my site to the SEO strategy in order to optimize the page in which is included in? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Duplicate content issue
Hello, I got duplicate content issue on my home page : examplesite.com
On-Page Optimization | | digitalkiddie
examplesite.com/index.html Those page urls are with duplicate content. If in index.html i use 301 redirect like that : Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://examplesite.com" );
?> would i loose any page authority ? sorry for the newbie question0 -
Is This Duplicate Content Hurting Our SERPs?
We sell 1000s of audio book title, many of which are published in more than one format (abridged, unabridged CD, and/or unabridged MP3) by the same publisher. Currently each title has its own page but the basic description of the title (story) is the same. Here is an example title that is offered in three formats. 44 Charles Street - Danielle Steel - abridged CD audiobook 44 Charles Street - Danielle Steel - MP3 CD audiobook 44 Charles Street - Danielle Steel - CD audiobook Each of the above pages has a different page title, a different URL, a different meta description however much of the body (from [Listen to a FREE Audio Clip] down is the same. Is this duplicate content hurting our SERPs?
On-Page Optimization | | lbohen1