updating articles?

On squidoo they are always talking about updating articles to keep them fresh, thereby helping them rank on google. If that is true on that site, it should be true on all sites.  I understand that active on-article participation by readers is built-in updating.  However, I have never been good at developing polls that others participate in (on the other hand, quizzes have worked for me) and comments are usually by other nice wizzley readers, but not those who get here from searches.

So, my question is - what effect does updating have on wizzley?

Here take a look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4hH4ZQ_19k

Sheri - it is rarely a requirement to update to keep things fresh (for the sake of freshness), but it is sensible to test whether an update (to title, intro, or some portion of the narrative) has an effect from an SEO perspective.

If, however, you find (or think of) something that will enhance what you have already written, then that is a time when it would not hurt for it to be included. This is especially true for links to new content which may be created after the original article was created.

Do not use your time updating articles unless there is a good reason so to do. Freshness in itself is not a compelling reason to undertake the process. You will know instinctively whether an article is the type that will benefit from regular updates.

However if you are inclined, a spring-clean will not cause undue harm.

Updating on Squidoo is important, because the 'freshness' is part of lensranking formula. Lensrank is important for two reasons:

- it can help your Tier position (this means bigger or smaller share of money coming from advertising)

- it can give you small boost in internal directories, what can (not necessary) mean more traffic from Squidoo users and (not necessary again) search engines.

Freshness is more important on Squidoo because it has in average more links on products (in Amazon, eBay...), things can go out of stock etc., so your lens doesn't look good with a lot of dead links or expired offers. Changes (theme, modules etc.) are much more often than on Wizzley. If you don't log in in Squidoo for few months many of your lenses can get into different sorts of problems.

In any case it is good to check your links from time to time (sometimes Wizzley can send you a notice on broken link, Squidoo never did that in my case) and it is good to add some new related info, if there is any.

I agree with humagaia - freshness for freshness sake has no direct impact on results in search engines.

But backlinking has:)

About lobobrandon's link... Google and other search engines love freshness on site. This is the reason sites with news in general rank better (and it has a lot of logic behind, because people constantly search for news and these would never have a chance against an old article with strong SEO behind (but with old info)). I believe Sheri_Oz's question was about pages (her articles on wizzley, not about WizzleyDOTcom, where freshness is achieved through fresh/new content).

Excellent answers - thank you, friends!  

To summarize:

Always see it from the reader's perspective.

Do you provide all the info they've been looking for? (Check your keyword stats to find out how your article gets found in Google, and whether or not you have covered all those queries.)

1. For instance, when your topic is "Native Trees of Texas" - do you list all of them with detailed descriptions and nice pictures? No need for updates. (Unless they discover a new species.)

2. If your topic is dynamic - periodically new research, developments, products, etc. - keep your readers updated. 

Don't worry about SEO - think usefulness. That's the best SEO you can do.

chefkeem: 01/05/2013 - 09:38 AM

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Do you provide all the info they've been looking for? (Check your keyword stats to find out how your article gets found in Google, and whether or not you have covered all those queries.)

 

How do you check keyword stats?

Use Google Analytics. Or even the wizzley keyword tool. Go to statistics and click on the number of views next to the page you're interested in. This will take you to the stats of that page. Check out the keywords people used listed on that page. 

Optimize your article for phrases that are already ranking well, this would surely get you more traffic. I've done it and know it works.  

PS: of course I've not done it on Wizzley yet as I usually give articles around 7 - 8 months before I check up on them. 

Oh, I see what you mean, thanks. I only have two that have a lot of searches  and one of those is "yule."  A lot of them are so specific to pages I already have up that I didn't see how I could do another article on them. Guess that's why I haven't paid much attention to it. 

No, we're not saying to write another article on that particular keyword/phrase. 

Let's say you've written an article on "Breeds of dogs for small homes" for some reason you may be raking well for a specific dog breed really well. In that case you should try writing more about that specific breed, but not fluff - something that you think people would be truly interested in. 

OOOOOOOOOH! Thanks Brandon. I'm going to have to look at that again. Wow.

haha your welcome.