Find the old posts that still bring visitors, check every price, product and rule in them, then update, label or remove each one. A post giving wrong advice does more harm than no post.

The post that keeps working

A blog post is written once, published and forgotten by the business. It is not forgotten by search engines.

If it answered a common question well, it can still rank years later. Someone searching this week finds a post from 2013 and reads it as today's advice from your business.

Many blog templates show the date in small grey type, or not at all. Few readers look for it.

So the post goes on quoting a price from four years ago, recommending a product the supplier stopped carrying and describing a process that has since changed. Then the reader calls and repeats it back to you.

What goes out of date

The third is the one that can do real harm. A stale price makes an awkward phone call; stale advice on a permit or a safety step can lead to a job done wrong, with your name on it.

Why old posts still rank

Search engines rank a page on how well it answers a search, and links from other sites build up over the years. A post that collected links in 2013 can outrank anything written since.

Recency counts for news and events. For a question people ask every year, such as how to patch a hole in a ceiling, a good older page can hold its place for a long time.

Which makes for an uncomfortable pattern: the posts most likely to be out of date are often the ones read most.

Find the posts people still read

In Google Analytics, open the landing pages report for the last twelve months and filter it for your blog's address. Sort by sessions.

A handful of posts usually bring most of the blog's visitors. Those are the ones to check first; a post nobody reads can wait.

Search Console's Search Analytics report adds the searches each page appears for. A post showing up for a price question needs a current price.

Then ask whoever answers the phone. Callers who quote the website usually quote the same few pages.

Read each one as a customer would

Owners skim their own writing and see what they meant. A customer reads every number literally.

Go through each popular post with a pen. Circle every price, product name, brand, rule, date and link, then ask of each one whether you would say it on the phone today.

Click the links too. Old posts often point to supplier pages that have moved, leaving the reader on an error page in the middle of your advice.

Then mark the post: still right, needs updating, or misleading.

A worked example

A drywall contractor with two crews wrote about thirty blog posts in 2012 and 2013, then stopped when the work got busy.

Three of those posts still brought most of the site's search visitors: what it costs to drywall a basement, soundproofing between floors, and repairing water-damaged ceilings. Nobody had reread them since they went up.

The cost post gave a price per square foot from 2013. Callers quoted it, and the estimator spent the start of many calls explaining why it no longer applied.

The soundproofing post named a board the local supplier had stopped stocking. The ceiling post said nothing about testing older ceilings before cutting into them, which the crews now insist on.

The cost post now gives this year's range and the factors that move it. The soundproofing post describes a type of board rather than a brand, and the ceiling post opens with testing.

A dozen posts about a long-expired promotion and a service the company no longer offers were removed, with their addresses redirected to the services page.

Update, label or remove

Update a post when it still answers a question people ask and you still want that work. Rewrite the wrong parts and keep the same address, so its links stay with it.

Label a post when it is a record of its time rather than advice: a project story, an event, an announcement. One line at the top saying when it was written, and what has changed since, is enough.

Remove a post when the advice is wrong and cannot be fixed, or when it covers work you no longer do.

Have its address redirected permanently to the closest current page, so old links lead somewhere useful instead of to an error page.

Dates that tell the truth

Show both dates on an updated post: first published and last reviewed. Readers trust advice more when they can see someone has checked it.

Avoid the shortcut of changing the publish date to this month without changing the content. The comments underneath, dated 2013, give it away, and the advice is no truer for the new date.

If the theme hides dates on posts, have it show them. Hiding the age of advice does not make it current.

Keep prices out of old posts

Prices are the fastest thing to go stale and the thing customers quote most.

Where a post needs to talk about cost, give a range, say what moves it, and add the month it was checked. Better still, link to one pricing page and keep that page current.

Then a price change means editing one page instead of hunting through four years of posts.

The counter-case

Not every old post needs this attention. Company news, staff announcements and event write-ups are records, and nobody mistakes them for current advice.

A small blog that draws almost no visitors can wait for a yearly afternoon's review.

And most old posts are still mostly right. Deleting one that answers a question well, because a single line is stale, throws away the work that made it rank.

For the posts people still read, though, check every price, product and rule, and fix or remove what is wrong.

This month

  1. List the most-visited posts from the last year.
  2. Read each one as a first-time customer.
  3. Circle every price, product and rule in them.
  4. Decide for each post: update, label or remove.
  5. Redirect every removed post to a current page.
  6. Show the updated date beside the original.
  7. Book the same review for next autumn.

Step three is the one that finds the problem. A post can read perfectly well and still hold the one figure a customer will quote back to you.

Keeping a page current through every season is also the point of a careers page for a business that is always hiring.

Frequently asked questions

Why do old blog posts still rank?

Because they answered a common question well and have collected links for years. For questions asked every year, a good older page can hold its place a long time.

How do I find which old posts matter?

In Analytics, open the landing pages report for the last year and filter it for the blog. A handful of posts usually bring most of its visitors.

What goes out of date in a post?

Prices, products and brands, rules and permits, rebates and promotions, and services you have stopped offering. Each reads as current advice to anyone who finds the post.

Should I delete posts with old advice?

Only when they cannot be fixed or cover work you no longer do. Redirect the address to the closest current page so old links still reach something useful.

Should I change the date on an updated post?

Show both dates: when it was first published and when it was last reviewed. Changing the date without changing the content misleads readers in a different way.

How do I stop prices going stale?

Give ranges with the factors that move them and the month they were checked, or link every post to one pricing page that is kept current.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Blog posts from 2013 still ranking?

Send us the blog address. We will list the posts people still read and mark what in them has gone stale.

Start a Conversation