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Blogwashing

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Re: Blogwashing

#61

Post by djsumdog »

nicoburns wrote: post #3

Honestly, I feel like this is Google's fault. It shouldn't be prioritising new content as much as it does. The best articles are often "classics" from several years ago that haven't changed because they haven't needed to.

There was a HN post a few weeks ago showing how Duck Duck Go was better at showing old content. I totally agree. We like what's fresh and new, but next time you go to a blog and read some tech article; look through their archive and see what else they've written. If you run your own blog, keep an easily indexd archive page. Mine goes back to 2007: https://battlepenguin.com/archives/

Re: Blogwashing

#62

Post by mroche »

dorfsmay wrote: post #21
geocrasher wrote: post #12

If I wrote an article in 2015 and freshen it up with more relevant links, better writing, or some other thing, is it still published in 2015? Should I re-date it? Am I "gaming" the system by doing that? Or am I notifying my readers (all 3 of them!) that there is fresh content? This is actually a real question from me, and I'd love feedback. I look back on my stuff from a few years ago and the blog posts need fixing u…

Often dates are extremely relevant, for example a 10 year old hardware review won't be as relevant as a new one. On the other hand, blogs don:t have to be static, some programing technique might still be relevant, but need to be updated for a new version of the language. Solution: put a "first published" and a "last updated" date, or use a wiki that makes the revisions available online and a way to link to the differ…

A variant of that, but something I’d like to see is listing initial publication and current revision/update status (including initial). Then at the bottom of the post put a summary of each update so readers know how the post has evolved.

Re: Blogwashing

#63

Post by lessname »

That's not just a thing done by blogs. Several "news" sites like (german) t3n.de do this. Or some sites like cnet.com etc... mostly content like "The best CMS as of {insert year here}" - so mostly things you can use years later. However, it doesn't help if the library isn't receiving any updates anymore. I don't think it's just to get a better search ranking but also to manipulate users (they want to use up-to-date software/etc)

Re: Blogwashing

#64

Post by sdegutis »

djsumdog wrote: post #61
nicoburns wrote: post #3

Honestly, I feel like this is Google's fault. It shouldn't be prioritising new content as much as it does. The best articles are often "classics" from several years ago that haven't changed because they haven't needed to.

There was a HN post a few weeks ago showing how Duck Duck Go was better at showing old content. I totally agree. We like what's fresh and new, but next time you go to a blog and read some tech article; look through their archive and see what else they've written. If you run your own blog, keep an easily indexd archive page. Mine goes back to 2007: https://battlepenguin.com/archives/

I had a blog for a decade but I realized that I would post something and nobody would read it, but then a famous programmer would post the same thing in their own blog a year later and everyone would hear about it. So I concluded that blogs are only for the well known programmers and that it’s a waste of my time to share my thoughts with “the web” as a general entity. Instead I share my thoughts with individuals when requested (which mostly just means answering my kids’ questions). Well, also commenting here but I’m not convinced that’s been beneficial to anyone either so I’m seriously considering giving up that too.

Re: Blogwashing

#66

Post by puranjay »

nicoburns wrote: post #3

Honestly, I feel like this is Google's fault. It shouldn't be prioritising new content as much as it does. The best articles are often "classics" from several years ago that haven't changed because they haven't needed to.

I work in content marketing so SEO is a big part of my work focus.

Google's algorithm tends to classify queries as "evergreen" and otherwise. With the former, recency doesn't seem to matter that much. I've had content stick a page 1 ranking for 3+ years without any updates.

For non-evergreen keywords, recency matters a lot. A fresh article on an established domain can often outrank better, but older content.

The query classification system works well enough for most keywords, but there is a grey area where Google doesn't really know what to focus on. Like with a query that focuses on "best practices". It isn't clear whether Google should prioritize classic, evergreen best practices, or focus on more recently developed best practices.

I would definitely appreciate a filter that only shows me old school content for my target queries. Some of the best content I've read online sits on websites that haven't been updated since 2002 and still use tables based design.

Re: Blogwashing

#67

Post by Spooky23 »

codingslave wrote: post #15

Search is just getting worse and worse, its a problem that probably nobody can solve with the current paradigm. I think in a few years there will be a significant opening in the search market for an algorithm that manages to structure information differently

That’s because the web is dead. Lots of passion projects that would have been on a blog or websites are locked into Facebook or even Twitter threads.

My local historical society decided to produce lots of content and exclusively post to Facebook. It’s incredibly dumb, but people seek the easiest path.

Re: Blogwashing

#68

Post by pxtail »

geocrasher wrote: post #12

If I wrote an article in 2015 and freshen it up with more relevant links, better writing, or some other thing, is it still published in 2015? Should I re-date it? Am I "gaming" the system by doing that? Or am I notifying my readers (all 3 of them!) that there is fresh content? This is actually a real question from me, and I'd love feedback. I look back on my stuff from a few years ago and the blog posts need fixing u…

This is actually mentioned in google's documentation - you need datePublished and dateModified: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/article...

Even looking from usability standpoint I think that it is totally okay and even necessary to add 'updated' or 'modified' date. Personally, as a reader I'm relying on article created/updated heavily, if I cannot quickly and easily figure out if article is still relevant and up-to-date I'm usually leaving webpage immediately without even bothering to read.

Re: Blogwashing

#69

Post by jakobegger »

Another great trick is just increasing version numbers in your blog posts! People look for content relevant to their version number, so you should just make sure you have copies of your content with all the version numbers people might search for!

And with version numbers, you are not limited to dates in the past, you can even write articles about the future!

Here's a brilliant example: https://gorails.com/setup/ubuntu/20.04

How to set up Rails on Ubuntu 20.04, which will be released in April next year. You can already read the guide today! Some of the links might not work yet, because obviously you can't download Ubuntu 20.04 yet, but once it's released, those guys are bound to be the first ones who had a guide out!

Re: Blogwashing

#70

Post by papln »

puranjay wrote: post #66
nicoburns wrote: post #3

Honestly, I feel like this is Google's fault. It shouldn't be prioritising new content as much as it does. The best articles are often "classics" from several years ago that haven't changed because they haven't needed to.

I work in content marketing so SEO is a big part of my work focus. Google's algorithm tends to classify queries as "evergreen" and otherwise. With the former, recency doesn't seem to matter that much. I've had content stick a page 1 ranking for 3+ years without any updates. For non-evergreen keywords, recency matters a lot. A fresh article on an established domain can often outrank better, but older content. The quer…

3+ years isn't a very long time. There is a lot of good old scholarship.
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