If you have a blog or website, I’m sure you’ve read lots of advice about updating old articles to keep them fresh, accurate, and relevant.
However, it’s a painfully slow process if your site has hundreds of articles or blog posts. Is it really worth the effort?
I have close to 1,000 articles on my site, and if I followed the generic advice, I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
That’s why I believe the advice you often read is too black and white. It’s not a simple question of should you or shouldn’t you. It’s a matter of only when.
When you read it enough times, it must be true
Almost from the day I started writing and publishing online, I’ve read countless articles saying that keeping a site’s content regularly updated is a must.
Well, I disagree. It’s not a must; it’s an option, a choice, or for me, an occasional task.
I’m sure you’ve read advice about changing publishing dates or including years in article titles to make them seem fresher than they are. But it can become a cycle, because every article with a date will need updating again in a year’s time.
For years, I followed the advice of some well-known SEO experts because I thought they must know more than me.
I don’t know how much time I spent updating old articles, deleting articles with little traffic, and often rewriting entire articles while also trying to write new content.
But after a few years of seeing very little improvement in organic traffic, I was less sure that the advice was correct.
With some experience under my belt, I started to wonder if some of the articles about updating old articles were mostly designed to rank for the topic on search engines.
A list of experts all trying to outrank each other to get more clicks.
And that’s a problem I see more and more now. SEO is a competitive topic, and one that many new bloggers, writers, and business owners read.
But when so many SEO sites and platforms are fighting for attention and clicks, it often leads to competing in the SERPs more than offering unique views and practical advice.
Why you can leave many old articles as is
I followed the advice, spent years doing the work, and studied the results. And eventually, I changed my mind.
Modifying dates and titles, rewriting introductions, and editing meta descriptions simply to make old articles appear fresher convinced me that much of this work was a waste of time.
Another trap I avoid now is deleting old articles. Very often they have practical value, such as internal links, are part of a cluster, or can pop in and out of SERPs.
Unless I have a compelling reason, which is extremely rare, I leave all my articles in place.
You don’t see newspapers rewriting old articles simply to make them seem new again, so why should you?
If you have some newsy type articles, such as announcing your book launch or book signings, leave them there for reference only.
Just because an article is old is not a reason to change anything. If it’s still accurate, useful, and relevant, leave it alone.
I see many results in search engines for articles that are around ten years old, or even older. Even some of mine.
So don’t believe everything you read about changing dates.
I always have dates on my articles. The date is either the published date or the date it was last updated.
But I’m careful not to change the date for an article simply because I fixed a broken link or a minor spelling mistake I happened to notice.
I have a custom function on my site that lets me choose not to change the modified date. It’s useful for keeping the dates on my articles as a more accurate indication of substantially updated content.
Rewriting a text simply because it’s old is not a good reason for an update. If it was worth reading two years ago, and nothing has changed, why bother?
If the only reason you update your articles is because you’ve read that “Google likes fresh content,” that’s not necessarily wrong. It’s simply that updating an article for the sake of freshness rarely achieves much on its own.
When you should definitely update an article
The only reasons I update articles now are specific and necessary.
If an article contains inaccurate information, I check and edit the text to make sure the information is correct.
It’s normal that some older articles might mention a product or service that has changed or is no longer available. In this case, I look for updated information or an equivalent replacement.
Sometimes information becomes outdated. In cases like this, I evaluate whether the article needs an update or if simply removing the reference is the best option.
One last reason is to add something I’ve learned. If it helps make an article more useful, it’s worth the effort.
Apart from these situations, I’m now very reluctant to make changes to existing articles.
With nearly 1,000 articles to curate, updating everything simply isn’t an option.
The advice is not wrong, just too broad
Much of the advice you read on this topic seems to imply that it applies to all articles.
That’s not the case at all, but perhaps it’s because the advice needs to cover all angles of the subject for all readers.
That’s why you need to consider the advice carefully and decide how much of it applies to you.
From a practical perspective, updating content is time-consuming, so you have to consider the benefit you’ll get from the time you invest.
In my case, I didn’t find that it helped very much, so I decided to use my time on more productive tasks.
One related issue is Google deindexing pages of a site.
In many cases, it’s simply that the content is weak, a duplicate, or, more recently, seemingly AI spam. It’s not necessarily because it’s old.
I used to try to recover deindexed pages on my site, but I don’t bother any longer. Yes, I was able to recover some pages with a light update, only for them to fall out again a few weeks later.
Another reason I stopped chasing was that very often some untouched pages got reindexed. Lastly, Bing rarely deindexes any of my pages, so updating to fight Google could result in losing SERP position on Bing.
Summary
I’m always careful about offering advice on SEO topics because it’s not my strong area of expertise.
But on this topic, I spent many years deleting and updating old articles, and I learned a few things along the way. In my experience, it rarely produced enough benefit to justify the time involved.
I should note that in 2020, a major site development incorrectly changed the modified date on all my articles.
It was part of a little tech disaster that took some time to rectify. Fortunately, it didn’t affect the originally published dates.
If you’re interested, you can find the published and modified dates by checking the source code of any of my articles. I’ve never changed the published date on any page, so the dates are still accurate.
In recent years, I’ve spent very little time on updating, apart from fixing broken links, changing internal links, or making small corrections.
That’s a routine maintenance process, and it’s much easier to manage.
Related Reading: Is Publishing Online Still Worthwhile For Writers?
English teacher, writer, and author. Passionate about grammar, creative writing, and self-publishing. Always exploring new tools and tech to help writers succeed.
