Freshness Factor
(This is an edited version of the article originally submitted on September 29th)
When you look at Google Patent, you will notice that it talks about how staleness can affect your ranking. This concept is used in other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN also. It reveals that it is not necessary for all sites to be updated on a regular basis. Some niche needs more updates while some requires less. So this raises the question, how often do you need to update your blog? Updating too much can adversely affect your ranking. But updating too little can make you lose some hard-earned ranking as well.
Some websites experience drastic fluctuations in ranking. It might rank well within the top 10 one day and drop out of sight within 48 hours. There are countless stories in webmaster forums about these happenings. One of the things you should consider is the site’s “freshness”. Making a slight change on the title, adding one page, and putting some links can get your site back on track.
Search engines get their data, it is important to know where. This will help you determine just how much you should update your site to get the maximum benefit. Look at your competitors within the niche and analyze their cache dates. You will notice that there is a patter between the post frequency and the frequency of cache content.
Use the Way Back Machine from Archive.org; take note of Alexa’s feature that puts start next to updates vs. update+site update as well. It can come handy in letting you determine your post frequency. Obviously, sites like Fox News need to be updated on a regular basis while government websites need not be. The next time you’re wondering why your site starts to lost its rankings, analyze your freshness factor.
Do an analysis of the competitors that consistently holds the highest and most stable rankings as well. List all the strong competitors and look at the dates on their content. You will know the frequency of their posts so you can follow their example. Likewise, look into your bottom competitors as well. It is likely that these competitors have implemented good SEO technique; it’s just that they were determined to be “stale” by the search engines to rank at the top.
With this knowledge, try to predict the size of your update. If you’re afraid to make a dramatic change, start small. Any changes on your site will make the search engine reevaluate your content. It can be a good thing or a bad thing. Search engines generally drop you in the ranking as they evaluate the new posts. You’ll come up again within several days once they determine that it’s the same topic. Now, if you want to play with the freshness factor, remember to keep in smart and safe.
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