Content Updating. How big it should be?

[peterko]

I've heard alot about content updating, how important it is for better SERP positioning.
Of course, this is just only one of the important things to do, but I want to know are there any criteria of how often and how big should be update to be considered by Google as good enough to raise the SERP position.
For example, my site is dedicated to supreme clothing and the brand name coupon codes. I have a lot of subpages that I update almost on a daily basis. But my home page is very general, and I usually update the content slightly. (Mostly promo expiration dates and some major sales). But this is the main page which reflects my PR and my SERP.
Do I have to update my home page more often? I also wondering, what percentage of the page should be updated to be considered as good enough.

Any help is very appreciated.

Have a great day,

[tdd1984]

Originally Posted by peterko

I've heard alot about content updating, how important it is for better SERP positioning.
Of course, this is just only one of the important things to do, but I want to know are there any criteria of how often and how big should be update to be considered by Google as good enough to raise the SERP position.
For example, my site is dedicated to supreme clothing and the brand name coupon codes. I have a lot of subpages that I update almost on a daily basis. But my home page is very general, and I usually update the content slightly. (Mostly promo expiration dates and some major sales). But this is the main page which reflects my PR and my SERP.
Do I have to update my home page more often? I also wondering, what percentage of the page should be updated to be considered as good enough.

Any help is very appreciated.

Have a great day,

It's not really that important as far as going to increase your SERP's, but what it is important for is getting links and things to that nature, so in other words promote high quality content that will have a viral hook

[sniperhiga]

It doesn't matted how big your updates. You can add 1 new page every month, make little changes, or play with design.
Just show Google that you work on your site and it is not a "dead" resource which provide outdated information.

[swapw]

Originally Posted by sniperhiga

It doesn't matted how big your updates. You can add 1 new page every month, make little changes, or play with design.
Just show Google that you work on your site and it is not a "dead" resource which provide outdated information.

If you want to increase traffic, then it's a bad idea to update them seldomly. However, if you just want to keep it alive and not lose your PR then yes.

[ezhel]

Sniperhiga is right, it is important to have an updated content to be crawled by spider web, we must think that google updated our rankings and it depends on how we optimized our site and updating contents is part of it.

[CaffinePhil]

It can all depend on the type of site too, a blog is going to update alot more frequently than a online store will.

Add new items, a news page, speacial offers, new stock, competitions etc.

[mit]

Do changes, when you see -
a) fall in search engine rankings
b) fall in web traffic
c) when you have new keywords / phrase to target
d) and, when there is a need of change.

And with all that above, you should be regular with all off-site optimization and tricks.

Best of Luck.

[coolguy27]

Originally Posted by mit

Do changes, when you see -
a) fall in search engine rankings
b) fall in web traffic
c) when you have new keywords / phrase to target
d) and, when there is a need of change.

And with all that above, you should be regular with all off-site optimization and tricks.

Best of Luck.

That's right, constant changes in contents just make the frequent crawling of the SEs bots. If there's a need to change then it's time to change...Not update everytime.

I've seen some websites that ranks well even not updated regularly (*the contents).

[sniperhiga]

Dynamic websites update themself better. Even if you have old plain HTML site you can still add some widgets which will show changes. Just make sure that this widgets are visible for spiders.

[ezhel]

Originally Posted by sniperhiga

Dynamic websites update themself better. Even if you have old plain HTML site you can still add some widgets which will show changes. Just make sure that this widgets are visible for spiders.

yes indeed!but dynamic pages requires maintenance, keywords are usually up and down....

[Filepeter]

Originally Posted by peterko

I've heard alot about content updating, how important it is for better SERP positioning.

You heard it right, the past year(s) google tottally changed the way the rank the websites. Normally there are 3 thinks they base the rank on, first.. the code. It must be clear, and easy to read both for the crawlers, and visitors. Second, the link building.. it has been discussed hundreds of times.

And last, but not less, even in my opinion - Most Important, is the Content. Why you may ask? Well, the short answer is far the simple.. the search engines as I said not once are going semantic. They will analyze the search terms and the realtions between them based on the country the searcher is, and gonna show you the most revelent results. It's like a human doing the search instead of you. The trick consist in the Latent Semantic Indexing which is part of the whole Latent Semantic Optimization Process. Search engines, the major ones at least, use LSI to extract the ideal content that a site should contain for a given search term/topic, and they rank accordingly the sites based on the match with his "perfect content". It's called ContentDNA. ContentDNA is an equivalent to the all extracted information of all the sites that exist out there (on a given topic) which is going to match the Common Neurolinguistic Map. The trick consist is finding the ideal ContentDNA which match the perfect one which the Search Engines have. Common Neurolinguistic map is the map that connects different neurolinguistic maps of people in the same society, environment etc. You can read more on latentsemanticoptimization.com, it's whole new theory.

[anie_b]

The content updation should be in a way that it is usable to the visitors and keep the customers up to date with your new products and services specials and latest business news. So it is necesssary to update your website page with relevant information in order to make your visitors intrestes. So feed the search engines with the fresh relevant content even if it is not big in size.

[James Trotta]

I think updating content is overrated. In the ESL niche, for example, many of the highest ranked sites have crap content that hasn't been updated in years. It was crap 5-10 years ago, it's crap now, and Google eats it up and can't get enough...

[sniperhiga]

Originally Posted by James Trotta

I think updating content is overrated. In the ESL niche, for example, many of the highest ranked sites have crap content that hasn't been updated in years. It was crap 5-10 years ago, it's crap now, and Google eats it up and can't get enough...

Yes... I worked for youth football website. There are many outdated crappy websites on top when you type youth football, football for kids, football for parents with kids... If niche is small there are bigger chance that really bad and old sites appear on top.
But, it is better to update your site once in a while when you want to rank well for SEO, hotels, relationships, books...

[James Trotta]

I would say it happens with bigger niches as well. The sites in bigger niches might have lots of 10-year-old links - a little fresh content won't help you against that.

I do think fresh content is important by the way. Just overrated.

Originally Posted by sniperhiga

Yes... I worked for youth football website. There are many outdated crappy websites on top when you type youth football, football for kids, football for parents with kids... If niche is small there are bigger chance that really bad and old sites appear on top.
But, it is better to update your site once in a while when you want to rank well for SEO, hotels, relationships, books...

[sniperhiga]

Originally Posted by James Trotta

I would say it happens with bigger niches as well. The sites in bigger niches might have lots of 10-year-old links - a little fresh content won't help you against that.

I do think fresh content is important by the way. Just overrated.

Just want to share...
Recently I promoted site and my client was trying to come back in top 10 with old 2007 page. It was seasonal keyword (popular only when footbal season starts). All our competitors beat us with their new 2008 pages. Even crappy sites rank above us. All we got was 3rd page on Google after hundereds good (quality) backlinks from articles, related forums, social sites, niche (sport) directories.
If we talk about keyword... our site 15 years old with 1000s quality backlinks (.edu, old sites, official sites, media coverage) with every page rank well on Google. As I told before, crappy sites ranked above us.

[peterko]

Originally Posted by sniperhiga

Just want to share...
Recently I promoted site and my client was trying to come back in top 10 with old 2007 page. It was seasonal keyword (popular only when footbal season starts). All our competitors beat us with their new 2008 pages. Even crappy sites rank above us. All we got was 3rd page on Google after hundereds good (quality) backlinks from articles, related forums, social sites, niche (sport) directories.
If we talk about keyword... our site 15 years old with 1000s quality backlinks (.edu, old sites, official sites, media coverage) with every page rank well on Google. As I told before, crappy sites ranked above us.

Yeah, I totally understend what you say. It seams to me you are very experienced person, but how you could explain the reason why crappy sites ranked above you? It's gotta be some explanation, don't you think so.
Appreciate your feedback.

Have a great day

[swapw]

Originally Posted by James Trotta

I think updating content is overrated. In the ESL niche, for example, many of the highest ranked sites have crap content that hasn't been updated in years. It was crap 5-10 years ago, it's crap now, and Google eats it up and can't get enough...

I think the measuring stick is different for every niche. ESL is a stagnant niche as suppose to the News niche. Without fresh content means digging your own grave. If the niche was like dolphins or something, unless something comes up updating the encyclopedia about them the info will probably stay the same.

-Swapw

[James Trotta]

Interesting theory.

If Google is trying to decide which niches rely on updates and which don't, they will fail. Like the ESL niche, for example. I suppose it's possible that Google decided new content is not important with ESL but if they did decide that they made a big error....

Originally Posted by swapw

I think the measuring stick is different for every niche. ESL is a stagnant niche as suppose to the News niche. Without fresh content means digging your own grave. If the niche was like dolphins or something, unless something comes up updating the encyclopedia about them the info will probably stay the same.

-Swapw

[peterko]

As I mentioned, my site is about supreme clothes discount coupons, and I'm doing content update almost on a daily basis, that's specific of the site. But it looks like it doesn't help too much in terms of raising Google SERP results. It's very possible, something else restrict Google from raising SERP and may be that something else makes more effect than all of my efforts to update content on a regular basis.

So, I even start thinking that content update is not a major factor for improving a website status.

Have a great day