Dealing with updating blog posts

[ben1000]

I run a travel and culture blog which means that I write about a lot of upcoming events which recur each year. Usually I title (and slug) the page with the event name and date.

When it comes to update the article the next year, sometimes it's as little as changing the date, other times more has changed and it needs to be substantially re-written.

Until now, what I've done is update the title, content, and then re-posted (sometimes altering the slug where it's needed to be done). Sometimes it works fine and Google keeps me ranking well, but other times the changes dont get such a great response.

I have these options (as far as I can see). Which do you think is best?

1. To create a new article each year and put a message at the start of the previous one to say, click here to read about the 2012 event

2. To continue what I'm doing updating, changing the slug, and re-posting (ie changing the date).

3. To write a new article and insert a 301 redirect.

I need to make sure the article appears as a new article in my RSS feed and also on the homepage.

Look forward to your ideas!

Thanks

[gtrotter666]

Wow - now I feel like my idea has been blessed by a god (Lead SEO at SEOMoz).....feeling quite chuffed actually!

[ben1000]

That sounds like a great idea. I'll try it. I have a fair number of readers coming through the RSS feed so don't really want to lose that.

I'll try it and let you guys know!

[RuthBurrReedy]

I like Gary's suggestion - having one page for the event over multiple years means that you're not creating a new page every time, so the page can continue to benefit from the links it accrues year over year (changing the slug means the post loses its link equity every time).

I can't find any statement from Google saying that changing the publish date of a piece of content isn't allowed when the content is updated. I think in this case it should be fine since your intent isn't to manipulate - it's an update page and a new post.

The other solutions would be to redirect all of your past event pages to the new one every time you make a new one - this would preserve a portion of your link equity - or not to update the publish date (I don't know how much traffic you get from RSS readers so that would be your call).

[ben1000]

Ok. Thanks anyway!

Anyone?

[gtrotter666]

I wasn't aware the Google didn't like a modified "published date" perhaps someone with more knowledge on that than me can help?  Sorry, I believe in "knowing your limits" and I have no personal experience with that being a problem (I am not saying it is not, just that I don't know!).

[ben1000]

Thanks for the reply

I dont necessarily need to keep previous years content - the issue with that way is that to get the updated post to go into the RSS I'd need to play with the publish date and that isn't something Google likes, right?

Thanks

[gtrotter666]

How about you maintain a single "page", i.e. a consistent URL for the "current year", so a slug of something like

-my-event-event-name (no dates or anything like that in the slug) then each year

1.)  Put the new/revised content on that URL.  Include the year in title, content, description etc.

2.)  Create a new post and copy the last year's content to that one including the historic date and link to it (if you want) so a URL a bit like -my-event-event-name-2011

That way, you always have the latest content on a consistent URL.  You can then maintain all the links you accrue over time to a single URL, just update content each year and store all of the past posts on "newly created" URLS each year.  No matter whether they rank or not, presumably....

Gary