Content Refresh

New content gets the attention, but on most established sites the pages that bring in readers were written months or years ago. Those pages age. A price changes, a step in a process moves, a better answer appears somewhere else. A content refresh is the work of keeping them accurate, so they go on deserving the attention they get.

This article explains how to do it well. It is part of our guide to website maintenance.

Why refreshing pays

HubSpot wrote one of the best-known accounts of this. Looking at its own blog, it found that 76% of its monthly blog views and 92% of its monthly blog leads came from older posts. By updating older posts, it reported increasing their monthly organic search views by an average of 106%, and more than doubling the leads they generated. Those figures come from HubSpot’s own blog, measured years ago, so treat them as an illustration rather than a forecast. The principle has held up: a page that already has an audience and some authority is usually easier to improve than a new page is to rank.

Google also has systems that favor fresher content for searches where freshness is expected. Its ranking systems guide describes “query deserves freshness” systems designed to show fresher content for queries where it would be expected, such as reviews of a newly released film or news after an event. Not every topic works this way, but where it does, an outdated page loses ground.

Refresh, rewrite or new page?

The default should be the smallest change that makes the page right. A full rewrite throws away what the page was already doing well.

Choosing which pages to refresh

You cannot refresh everything at once, so start where it counts:

• Pages that bring the most visitors. Their accuracy matters most.
• Pages whose traffic is falling. Search Console shows clicks and impressions over time for each page.
• Pages ranking just below the first page of results. A real improvement can move them up.
• Pages with time-sensitive facts: prices, versions, laws, statistics, “best of” lists.
• Pages with a low click-through rate for their position, where the title or description no longer matches what people are looking for.

How to refresh a page

1. Read it as a newcomer would. Note everything that is wrong, unclear, missing or out of date.
2. Check every fact against its source. Update figures, prices and steps. Replace sources that have moved or disappeared.
3. Answer the questions people now ask. Search Console’s query report shows which searches bring people to the page; make sure the page answers them.
4. Improve the weakest sections rather than rewriting the strong ones.
5. Check the links. Fix broken ones, add links to newer articles on the same topic, and make sure the page links to its pillar.
6. Review the title and description so they match what the page now offers.
7. Update the date, because the page has genuinely changed.
8. Keep the address. A refresh happens at the same URL, so the page keeps everything it has earned.

Dates: the rule not to break

It is tempting to change a page’s date without changing much else, so that it looks current in search results. Google addresses this directly in its guidance on helpful content, asking: “Are you changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed?” Its documentation on dates also asks that the dates shown describe when the page was published or updated, and that the visible date and the date in structured data agree.

The honest version is simple. Show a “last updated” date, and change it when you make a real update. Readers learn to trust it, and so do search engines.

Small and steady beats big and rare

Refreshes work best as a habit rather than an event. A page reviewed every few months needs a few small corrections each time. A page left for three years needs a rewrite, and by then it has already lost readers. Small, regular updates also carry less risk: if something goes wrong, you know exactly which change caused it.

What not to do

• Do not delete pages because they are old. If a page still serves readers, improve it. If it no longer does, redirect it to the page that does.
• Do not change addresses during a refresh. That turns a small update into a site change, with redirects and risk.
• Do not rewrite in a different voice. A refreshed page should still sound like your site.
• Do not add filler to make a page longer. Length is not quality.

Where our product fits

We make FreshnessPilot, which does this work continuously: it monitors existing pages, makes small updates that are safe to make, holds the rest for your approval if you prefer, and never deletes a page. It is our product, and everything in this article works just as well done by hand.