Reviving a (very) old blog - is it worth shifting the content onto a new blog?
-
I look after a few ecommerce sites, one of them doesn't currently have a blog, we are setting up a wordpress blog now for the site. Going way back in time the site did have a blog which was on a separate Typepad domain. What I'm wondering is whether it is worth redirecting this whole blog to the new blog section of the site and copying some of the content over to the new blog as historical posts?
I don't think it will be possible to redirect each individual post to a new one so it will just be a straight redirect of the old blog domain to the new one with the same (most of anyway) content. Do you think it is worth doing this for the value of this content which is relevant but dated (many of the links are now expired)? Doing this will take some time to do so it's not 'free' content we'd be getting
We have a lot of new content planned out so we won't be short of content, just would be nice to have some historical content on there too
Thanks
-
Hi there
I would do a quick content audit and see what content from your old blog could be removed, consolidated, or updated. People love in-depth articles and posts so this could be a great opportunity to see what content is worth expanding on or leaving alone.
Whatever you, do make sure that you properly URL map your old blog so that old posts are pointing to their new home on the new blog - that way you don't have a bunch of old blog posts pointing directly to the main blog category.
You may also want to do a backlink audit in case some of those old blog URLs have links pointing to them and you want them to updated to the new URL structure, or removed because they are spammy.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
Having content is always nice. Creating great conten takes time and efford. Asking people to make content goes better if you already have some content. So please choose some "valuable" or "evergreen" conten of the old blog and post it on your new one.
Creating 301 redirects from the old domain is a good way to rescue some of the old link value. Even if you do not see it in moz and majestic, it still could be there. It is not to much efford if you know what you are doing. So go for it.
If redirecting each post is to much work redirect all posts to your /blog/ directory. LInk value and visitors will get what they want!
go for it!
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
-
Another website copying our blog content but credit us. Still bad?
Hi Moz community, A few businesses that we work with are asking if they can leverage our content such as blogs by basically copying it and post it on their site. They will give us credit for the content though. My concern is that going to cause duplicate content issue and hurt us with our SEO? We'd like to provide it to them in a way that would benefit us or at least doesn't hurt us. I can think of a few possible options... 1. Have them only copy part of the content and link back to our site with a link "Read the original article" or something similar 2. Have them implement rel=canonical back to our site 3. Have them just copy the whole thing (because it doesn't really hurt us?). In that case, do we have them link back to us or no? Is there anything I missed? What's the best option for us? Thank you for the help in advance!
Content Development | | aphoontrakul1 -
Wordpress Old Articles date - Update or Not
Hey there! Been reading around and I believe that there isn't a perfect answer to this question, but I surely want to know your opinion. It's a fact that google likes new content but also updated content, so whats your position concerning the wordpress articles. Meaning, when I decide to update articles from 2011 on its content, should I also update the date? If I make a search and an article from 2011 will be shown, its unlikely that I will click on it... So that you can understand my point.
Content Development | | prozis0 -
Why did Moz remove thumbs down from blog posts?
You may have already noticed one of the decisions we made when we redesigned the Moz Blog:
Content Development | | Trevor-Klein
We removed thumbs down from the posts. And it was largely in the name of transparency. Wait, HUH? You took away a method of critique, and you're calling that transparent? Yes. Here's the scoop: Thumbs down are one of the most cryptic, uninformative, and often passive-aggressive forms of feedback on the Internet today. By removing the mud from the water, we make the entire picture clearer. It's so easy to see a handful of thumbs down on a post (we would almost always get 1-2), and begin hypothesizing what went wrong. We shouldn't have published that one. The topic was too tangentially relevant; it was too long or too hard to follow. There wasn't enough evidence to support the claims. We could dive into analytics, attempting to glean clues about what happened, but in reality, any one of the following are reasons someone might thumb a post down: The title is confusing The topic is one that I'd like to deny exists (algo update, e.g.) The milk I poured on my cereal this morning had gone bad, and I need to take out this frustration somehow I once had a falling-out with the author of this post I still have a bad taste in my mouth about yesterday's post, which is skewing my thoughts about this one I found one of the comments offensive My finger slipped on my phone while I was trying to thumb this post up (we've confirmed this happens) I didn't like the author's self-promotion in this post I saw the new Star Wars trailer, and am terrified that Disney might think including Jar Jar's long-lost brother in the new film is a good idea. I hate everything right now. Okay, the last one might be a stretch. But you get the idea. Sometimes a post would receive a disproportionate amount of thumbs down simply because the author was proposing an idea that wasn't popular, no matter its importance. One great example: Carson Ward wrote a fabulous post in 2012 titled "Guest Blogging – Enough is Enough," divining what Matt Cutts would write about nearly 17 months later. The response? 45 thumbs down – one of the most maligned posts in the history of the Moz Blog. Authors have emailed us in a tizzy, asking if their thumbs down meant they weren't quite right for the Moz audience, and in replying to them we came to this overarching realization: We didn't know why they got thumbs down, and we couldn't find out with any certainty, but more often than not it just didn't really matter. We were confident in their points and their presentation, and real criticism would nearly always show up in the comments. All that said, we love it when people offer up constructive criticism. We always take it to heart, and hearing directly from you all is the best way we can improve. For that reason among many others, we'll always have the comments below the post. If you feel like a post wasn't up to snuff, please take a moment and tell us why in those threads (please keep it TAGFEE). One last note: Thumbs down remain available on comments, though that's a temporary stop-gap while we work on a more informative system for flagging comments that are offensive, or facepalm-worthy attempts at links (they're nofollowed anyway!), or otherwise inappropriate for our community. We'd love your questions or comments on this change, and hope you're enjoying the new look of the Moz and YouMoz blogs!11 -
SEO for a Deal Blog
Hi, I have a deal blog that is several months old. My established and successful "competitors" have a high Domain Authority (43, 46, 63) but most of their blog posts are very short. Our readers want to know about the coupon, deal, discount, code etc - they don't want 250 + words for each post. However I am concerned that lots of short posts will label my blog as low quality and that Google Panda will get me. My competitors easily get on page 1 of google. Yes they also write articles but majority of their posts are short. I deindexed quite a few short blog posts but my audience googles for coupons and deals like crazy. I try to give as much info as I can without being wordy and annoying but sometimes that still gets me only 100 words. I also write a lot of articles relevant to my niche (mom/baby/maternity) that are high quality and several hundred words. Just looking for input on deal blog SEO. Thanks!
Content Development | | dealblogger0 -
Blog Frequency
Hi, We have a new blog, we write 4 blogs per month and have been posting all 4 in one go at the same time per month. Would it be more beneficial to post the blogs 1 per week or does it not matter? Also, is 4 blog 250 word blogs per month enough or should we be doing more? Thanks Andrew
Content Development | | Studio330 -
Typepad.com blog migration & duplicate content
I've migrated a typepad.com blog with a bunch of content (but little traffic) onto a hosted WordPress site under my own domain name (the way I should've done it in the first place). Now I don't want to confuse Google that the new site is duplicating content from the other site, so would I be better off with: 1) meta-refresh redirecting each typepad.com post to the same post on the new blog, or 2) just killing the typepad.com blog entirely so Google will not find duplicate posts anywhere. In favor of #2 is the fact that these posts get very little traffic today. I figure I will lose more traffic from duplicate content ranking penalties than from losing the posts themselves in the original blog. What do you think?
Content Development | | chriscrabtree0 -
The concept of Blogging
Can anyone describe the fundamentals of blogging? Should I be aiming blog posts at "subject A vs subject B" or more on recent projects that have been worked on such as "keyword working with company A to complete subject X" ? Also, should I allow comments on posts and filter out the spam using plugins and manual methods or should I just turn them off and forget the hassle? Any help would be grand!
Content Development | | Hughescov0 -
Blog SEO Strategy
The current SEO strategy for my company blog is to include a percentage of short tail keywords in each blog post, and not to link to the main site because they are concerned with diluting the blog. I would like to change the strategy and instead use the blog to promote long tail keywords by having each entry focus on around a different long tail keyword. I would also like to use the short-tail keywords for internal linking to strengthen our important pages with keyword rich anchor text (no more than 1 link per 100 words). I would love the advice of the SEOMoz community about which strategy is more effective (or if there is something else entirely we should be doing). Thanks!
Content Development | | theLotter0