How important is fresh content

[Toni Anicic]

This topic is for kind of more experienced SEO persons

Lately I've been noticing that Google is giving way more importance to the freshness of content. Not only that fresh content ranks much better but also fresh content pretty much boosts the general website's rankings.

Is Google actually changing the algorithm to serve more fresh content in battle with real time search?

Do you still menage to rank with old and static content as good as you use to?

[crankydave]

IMO much has to do with the kind of site it is.

Fresh content ("minty fresh" as Matt put it) has been getting an initial bump for quite some time. Whether or not it stays there depends upon how well it is marketed.

I've not noticed any issues with static content. For me, it's a matter of whether or not the content is accurate and current, which can be older and/or static.

Change simply for the sake of change isn't neccessarily a good thing IMO.

Dave

[ctabuk]

At least once a week I add new content. I do this in a variety of ways. I either add to existing content and place a outgoing link to something my readers may enjoy. Or I simply create a page based on something that has occured to me. Currently I'm getting loads of Russian searches - so I'll be posting a Russian page and use Google translate. Now that will be interesting - I don't know if it has been done before. Translate is so easy to use, personally I don't know what the SE's will make of it.

[MayaLocke]

I think that when you continuously add new content the search engines increase the frequency in which they spider the site. Also you are more likely to capture long tail traffic because you will have more content (because you are constantly adding to it).

[ctabuk]

It will only catch long tail traffic if you are adding to the url title, that in itself is risky. If you have a longtailed that is working, leave well alone. I think what you are referring to is more a case of long tailed cache. Where by adding content with new associated keywords/anchor text then you are improving the search locators.

[Spence]

I try to add a new blog or short peice every day, or at least every two days.

I will only add the content though if I feel it is just as good as the others I have done are. What I mean by this is, I will not post content just for the sake of posting it.

I think Google does give a bump to fresh content, but as mentioned, keeping it there is a different matter, and thats where I strongly believe the quality comes into play.

New content is always great, and content is the king in my opinion, but it has to be of good enough quality to remain up there.

[williamc]

The initial bump that fresh content gets has other plusses as well. New links on those pages are seen faster, and at least at first seem to give decent amounts of weight to the anchors there. As Dave pointed out tho, it takes that page being marketed to keep it there.

[flhu]

It makes sense. Sites that have been around for a long time might have more "authority," but sites with fresh content are being maintained. Both of these factors play into how well a site is going to give you the info you need, and if Google wasn't good at showing you which sites have that info, they wouldn't be where they are now.

It's nothing new. I've noticed a Freshness bump from Google after every change for many years. But they might be weighing freshness even more in the past half a year, especially with their GoogleNews aggregator.

Reminds me, One time I had a programming question that was difficult to ask google because it contained $ # % kind of characters. So I asked on Devshed. I hadn't given up trying to find the answer myself, so I continued Googling. Within 15 minutes my post asking the question was #1 for what I was looking for. (and this was not a google desktop cache result; I checked)

[patrickkidda]

Originally Posted by flhu

Within 15 minutes my post asking the question was #1 for what I was looking for. (and this was not a google desktop cache result; I checked)

That is pretty wild.

I agree with CrankyDave about the value

[Terry Van Horne]

There was a time when the freshness of an index was the best test of quality. I still think that is nirvana for SEs and why you hear so much noise about "real time search" and Twitter as a potential Google killer. I do think you really have to stay on top of the IBLs to maintain any "freshness" boost. Regular content additions have pretty much always helped because it increases indexing activity.

[ChiefLee]

From my experience, fresh content sure seems to be a part of google's algorithm. I don't think it's imperative to update daily. But fresh content weekly is good from many levels including user experience.

[loosapphire]

I believe google's algorithm balance them well between freshness and quality. Dave is right Change simply for the sake of change isn't neccessarily a good thing IMO. Keeping the routine work would be a good way to copy with any change.

[sofomor]

Not necessarily!

I have projects with content optimized 2 years back and still ranking top. And also have projects with recently optimized content, but getting up/down all the time.

Depends on your topic, competition and keywords.

Regards

[bobchrist]

Creativity and new ideas can help you to generate fresh content, it will give reason for search engines to index your content faster.

[zbatia]

There is no doubts in my mind that Google included "freshness" into a search algorithm. Unfortunately, it also included millions of twitter-shmitter sites that are updated in a real time, so the weight of blogs prevails the weight of regular content. Even though Google claims it does not crawl Twitter it surely crawls heavily forums, BBs, and other social networking sites. I have monitored the log on my sites and I have a proof.
It's easy to update the web site with 10-20 pages but not so with 250-300 pages especially if you have not 2-3 landing pages but 50-75. Only the plug-ins with the news crafted to match the content can make a difference but I am not sure Google pays any attention to it.
So, I am trying as much as I can.

[xuchunfeng1984]

fresh content can get google to return your sites often, and index new posts. for google like fresh information as well as customer. for my exper, once you creat a new content you should submit it to SB such as Digg.com. you will get good result in ranking fastly.

[azeemi]

as you know that seo is continues process and adding fresh content on your website is basically a invitation to google bot for crawl the website again and again it depends on you content updation and for older content my suggestions are tweaking content with more effective high search volum keyworeds its also called content updation with some new and market valued keywords is better then to rewrite it.

Thanks.

[tdave]

Instead of seo.Fresh content help in reducing the amount of SPAM content and make internet a better place ,

[Miami-Mike]

I think your topic was covered in 100% with previous posts. I noticed a boost of old blog after I posted new content but it was for only about 5 days and it got to it's normal position in SERPs. I don't think it's worth your time - just focus on link building.

[York Web Design]

Originally Posted by Miami-Mike

I think your topic was covered in 100% with previous posts. I noticed a boost of old blog after I posted new content but it was for only about 5 days and it got to it's normal position in SERPs. I don't think it's worth your time - just focus on link building.

I would completely disagree. New content is link bait. Even if it only hits the top of the serps for 5 days, it will still get noticed and potentially linked to.

Also, a static site may as well be a dead site. I dont mean static as in static (x)HTML, I mean static as in not growing with new content. you will not even get the 5 days at the top without new stuff. A site has to be alive.

If you consider it as a baby when you set it up, then as it gets into puberty it starts to get frustrated with lack of SERPS and no links. At this point you can go get links from anywhere, while your trustrank is still good. Then you may well get some traffic from serps. But most of it will probably be from webmasters from your emailed link swap requests. They will be trawling round looking at it while they think about linking to it.

As early adulthood comes so you are happy getting a bit of traffic through these endeavors. However, when middle age comes by you get slammed. The same old site, trust rank is now next to nothing, all the work you did is now a on the bottom of the dogpile.

As your midlife crisis continues, you may well give up. All that work, now useless.

The alternative is far better. Yes spend time getting links but create new well SEOed material as well. Make sure that all of your material is accessible and usable. Make sure your design works well in all and any browser. Standards are there for that reason.

Just think about it. How many times have you looked at a site after a link request and though NO WAY! Then consider when see a good design with new unique material up and on offer. Which one is more likely to get links?

Anyhow. I do go on.

[kbeus21]

Fresh content is definatley smiled upon by google, lowering old content in the serps I feel is google's way of getting rid of dead sites.

[Peter (IMC)]

This kind of looks like that brain property where it is only able to recognize what it already knows. (i.e. When you bought a new car, you all the sudden see that brand and model everywhere.) There is a new searh engine out there that tries to search the internet live and now we see Google delivering fresh content. I don't think much has changed to be honest.

But of course it's possible Google did some tweaks to its historical data algorithms in order to push newer content in some markets. But it has been doing that already. News results by definition are the most recent results it found.

But it can not be that fresh content now pushes to the top easier. Spammers would love that for sure. But any business with products that have been around for years, does not have to worry about a thing. If fresh content all the sudden would become more important, they have to be blogging all day long to maintain positions. Obviously that's not what's happening.

[ericajoieake]

yes, fresh content is very important because these are what visitors are looking for and as well as search engine robots.

[john86]

Fresh content has the effect, in part of encouraging both users and SE’s to return to your pages/site, but in many cases there are no real reasons to update specific pages. Best then is to keep adding interesting relevant pages of new content over time.
That said, there are some sites that are pretty much set and don’t necessarily warrent new work being done. A comprehensive and definitive guide to Shakespeare for example. IF the site has the best content and the best backlink profile and the best onsite SEO in the category, it might stay at or near the top for an indefinite period. In that case, sometimes just a low level ongoing program to encourage new links can be enough.

[web design cape town]

Everyone is talking about fresh content, fresh content, but let's get more technical...

Where would Google like to see this content?
When we talk about fresh content.... are we talking about well writtin copywrite articles on the same topic?
Are we talking about expanding your site with related information?
Should you add new pages with this content?
Should you add this content to your current pages or should you replace the old?
Should you add it to your home page or other pages in your root?
Should the new content be placed at the top or at the bottom of the page?

Am I just slow are are these question not more important, we all know about fresh content, but how we should handle the content is more important.

[Toni Anicic]

web design cape town, welcome to WPW

These are all good questions and I'll try to answer them with my opinions:

Where would Google like to see this content?

I'm not sure I fully understand this question. Where as in at what kind of website or what part of website or something else?

When we talk about fresh content.... are we talking about well writtin copywrite articles on the same topic?

Yes, among other things. Lots of things are considered a "content".

Are we talking about expanding your site with related information?

Always.

Should you add new pages with this content?

Now this is a tricky question. We might have some disagreeing on this one in SEO community. My opinion. If you have an entire new article, my opinion is it should be on a new URL instead of editing the existing related topic. On the other hand, if you have just a small chunk of info, you should edit some relevant page and include it within.

Should you add this content to your current pages or should you replace the old?

See the answer above ^^

Should you add it to your home page or other pages in your root?

It really depends on the type of the site you run. I personally believe that every homepage should be summarizing the topic of the website. This means it should link to inner pages as much as possible and include content snippets if applicable. Depending on the topic and type of website, fresh content might need to appear on the homepage. If you're running some sort of news site, blog or something similar, of course you're going to push the new content to the homepage.

Should the new content be placed at the top or at the bottom of the page?

This is probably the question regarding editing old content pages to include new content, right? Well, I think it should be placed where it best fits the context. It might even be in the middle of the page in some cases

[web design cape town]

unfortunately I am new here so I can't PM you and can't post links, hopefully soon, but thank you for your opnions and the warm welcome.

off topic:
please view new thread on h1 h2 h3 tags

[Feddy]

about google algorithm no body knows.fresh content is very much important so it will be more helpful if u creating fresh content.