Let's be honest.
Updating old content is a PITA Pandera.
(Pain In The ---).
I've got almost 3,000 blog posts on One More Cup of Coffee and then some.
Do I really want to go back to 2012.... and revamp those posts?
Nope.
Do I want to delete everything before 2015 -16 and deal with thousands of 404 errors?
Also nope.
In my mind, there are 3 strategies you can use to keep your content fresh.
- Do Nothing
- Outsource
- Get To Work
- Repost
Details: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/nathaniell/blog/how-to-update-impossible-website-content
I usually opt for a combination of #2 and #3.
But for sure, option #1 is super attractive.
Though I kind of glossed over deleting stuff in the linked article above, I do that too actually.
I do redirects as well.
Both are part of the updating process.
Redirects
When updating, I find that I "cannibalize" a lot of keywords. Or repurposed to video or other format, podcast...
I'll write four or five blog posts on similar topics every day anyway.
None of them rank, so they are basically worth nothing to me in this state.
So what I do first is put the URLS in a spreadsheet.
Then I'll cut/paste all the relevant information into one mega-article
Lastly, I redirect the old articles to the new one
When I see that the new article is ranked for its intended keyword (even if it's not ranking well), I know that Google has detected and accepted the redirect.
Then I'll search/ replace the URLs in my database with the new URL so I don't have a chain of redirects
Deleting
Sometimes I just have stuff that needs to go away.
It's not worth saving.
Basically, don't try to catch a 'falling knife.' And don't cry over 'spilt milk.'
If that's the case, I don't even mess with redirects.
I just delete the stuff.
Sure, it may give me some 404's, but 404's don't hurt your SEO unless it's a huge amount and affecting visitor actions and they can be redirect.
Since these are garbage pages and not getting traffic (you checked that, right?), you'll be fine.
If I go through a string of deletions I make sure to update my SEMRush Site Audit.
It'll tell me where I have internal linking 404 issues.
Then I'll go through individually and clean up any 404's.
It takes just a few minutes.
Just double check the stuff you delete doesn't have any powerful backlinks pointing to those pages.
You can check Search Console or use Ahrefs to do that.
Why Go Through This Process?
This makes sure that all content on your website is top notch.
Everything else gets cut.
As I said in the beginning, it's not super fun doing this.
But I think it's healthy for your website and good for the long term of your business.
Lastly, you'll find a lot of silly mistakes like spelling errors, dead links, blurry images, and general bad ideas.
Individually, that stuff doesn't matter.
But cumulatively, it all adds up.
The other option is if you update your email every year start a new site... I get 1MM emails a year so I creat a new sun-account in google... and a blog or journal...
via email addy only I know I'll update the blogs by using LazyBlogger and some 1100+ articles prewritten just for me... I update and send back out or recycle...
Talk soon everyone.
Joao
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: One More Cup of Coffee <nathaniell@onemorecupof-coffee.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:06 AM
Subject: 3 Strategies For Updating Your Website Content
ToWork
Nathaniell.
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