• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. On-Page Optimization
        4. Updating Old Content at Scale - Any Danger from a Google Penalty/Spam Perspective?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Updating Old Content at Scale - Any Danger from a Google Penalty/Spam Perspective?

        On-Page Optimization
        3
        4
        882
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • paulz999
          paulz999 Subscriber last edited by

          We've read a lot about the power of updating old content (making it more relevant for today, finding other ways to add value to it) and republishing (Here I mean changing the publish date from the original publish date to today's date - not publishing on other sites).

          I'm wondering if there is any danger of doing this at scale (designating a few months out of the year where we don't publish brand-new content but instead focus on taking our old blog posts, updating them, and changing the publish date - ~15 posts/month). We have a huge archive of old posts we believe we can add value to and publish anew to benefit our community/organic traffic visitors.

          It seems like we could add a lot of value to readers by doing this, but I'm a little worried this might somehow be seen by Google as manipulative/spammy/something that could otherwise get us in trouble.

          Does anyone have experience doing this or have thoughts on whether this might somehow be dangerous to do?

          Thanks Moz community!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • paulz999
            paulz999 Subscriber @CleverPhD last edited by

            Awesome, thank you so much for the detailed response and ideas - this all makes a good deal of sense and we really appreciate it!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • CleverPhD
              CleverPhD last edited by

              We have actually been doing this on one of our sites where we have several thousand articles going all the way back to the late 90s.  Here is what we do / our process (I am not including how to select articles here, just what to do once they are selected).

              1. Really take the time to update the article. Ask the questions, "How can we improve it? Can we give better information? Better graphics?  Better references? Can we improve conversion?"  2) Republish with a new date on the page.  Sometimes add an editor's note on how this is an updated version of the older article.  3) Keep the same URL to preserve link equity etc or 301 to new url if needed 4) mix these in with new articles as a part of our publication schedule.

              We have done this for years and have not run into issues. I do not think Google sees this as spammy as long as you are really taking the time to improve your articles. John M. and Gary I. have stated unequivocally that Google likes it when you improve your content. We have done the above, it has not been dangerous at all. Our content is better overall. In some cases where we really focused on conversion, we not only got more traffic, but converted better. Doing this will only benefit your visitors, which usually translates into Google liking the result.

              I would ask, why take a few months where you only recycle content, to just mixing it up all year long?  If you were going to designate 3 months of the year to just update content, then why not take the 3rd week of the month each month or every Wednesday and do the same thing instead.  You accomplish the same thing, but spread it out. Make it a feature! Flashback Friday etc.

              Bonus idea - make sure you get the schema right

              We have something new with our process. Previously, we only marked up the publication date in schema. So when we republished, we would change the publication date in the schema as well to the new pub date.  Now that Google requires a pub date and last modified date in schema we have changed our process. When we republish content, we will leave the original publication date as the publication date marked up in schema and then put the new date that the article is being published marked up as last modified in schema. This is a much more clearer and accurate representation to Google as what you are doing with the article.

              We are also displaying the last modified date to the user as the primary date, with the publication date made secondary. The intent here is that we want to show that this is an article that has been recently updated to the user so they know the information is current.

              To get this to work properly, we had to rework how our CMS interacts with content on both published date and last modified date, but in the end, I think we are giving better signals to Google and users on the statuses of our articles.

              paulz999 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • OlegKorneitchouk
                OlegKorneitchouk last edited by

                You'll probably experience a dip from not publishing new content but I don't believe there will be any other issues.

                Updating old content (drip fed or in bulk) won't trigger any spam/manipulation flags.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Viktoriia1805

                  The particular page cannot be indexed by Google

                  indexing googlesearchconsole onpage

                  Hello, Smart People!
                  We need help solving the problem with Google indexing.
                  All pages of our website are crawled and indexed. All pages, including those mentioned, meet Google requirements and can be indexed. However, only this page is still not indexed.
                  Robots.txt is not blocking it.
                  We do not have a tag "nofollow"
                  We have it in the sitemap file.
                  We have internal links for this page from indexed pages.
                  We requested indexing many times, and it is still grey.
                  The page was established one year ago.
                  We are open to any suggestions or guidance you may have. What else can we do to expedite the indexing process?

                  On-Page Optimization | | Viktoriia1805
                  1
                • AslanBarselinov

                  Duplicate content in sidebar

                  Hi guys. So I have a few sentences (about 50 words) of duplicate content across all pages of my website (this is a repeatable text in sidebar). Each page of my website contains about 1300 words (unique content) in total, and 50 words of duplicate content in sidebar. Does having a duplicate content of this length in sidebar affect the rankings of my website in any way? Thank you so much for your replies.

                  On-Page Optimization | | AslanBarselinov
                  1
                • newbyguy

                  Canonical: Same content but different countries

                  I'm building a website that has content made for specific countries.  The url format is: MyWebsite.com/<country name="">/</country> Some of the pages for <specific url="">are the same for different countries, the <specific url="">would be the same as well.  The only difference would be the <country name="">.</country></specific></specific> How do I deal with canonical issues to avoid Google thinking I'm presenting the same content?

                  On-Page Optimization | | newbyguy
                  0
                • vivekrathore

                  How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having aggregated content or duplicate content

                  How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having duplicate content. I mean somewhere google says they will prefer original content & will give preference to them who have original content but this statement contradict when I see Indeed.com as they aggregate content from other sites but still rank higher than original content provider side. How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having aggregated content or duplicate content

                  On-Page Optimization | | vivekrathore
                  0
                • StoryScout

                  Duplicate Content - Blog Rewriting

                  I have a client who has requested a rewrite of 250 blog articles for his IT company. The blogs are dispersed on a variety of platforms: his own website's blog, a business innovation website, and an IT website. He wants to have each article optimised with keyword phrases and then posted onto his new website thrice weekly. All of this is in an effort to attract some potential customers to his new site and also to establish his company as a leader in its field. To what extent would I need to rewrite each article so as to avoid duplicating the content? Would there even be an issue if I did not rewrite the articles and merely optimised them with keywords? Would the articles need to be completely taken by all current publishers? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

                  On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout
                  0
                • ShearingsGroup

                  Duplicate content on partner site

                  I have a trade partner who will be using some of our content on their site. What's the best way to prevent any duplicate content issues? Their plan is to attribute the content to us using rel=author tagging. Would this be sufficient or should I request that they do something else too? Thanks

                  On-Page Optimization | | ShearingsGroup
                  0
                • RobertFisher

                  Sliders and Content Above the Fold

                  I was just inspecting a wire frame that is going out to a client and realized that the slider may interfere with the "content above the fold." Can't believe this had not struck me on others. If the Header has basic business info, etc. in it and you place a slider to display images in the area just beneath the Header or slightly down from it, does that decrease the amount of content seen a being above the fold? Or, is content above the fold established by virtue of H1,2, 3, etc.?

                  On-Page Optimization | | RobertFisher
                  0
                • SangeetaC

                  Google Page Rank of my site has dropped from 4/10 to 3/10

                  Google Page rank of my website has been dropped after Panda Update. Can anyone help me out to tell me the possible reasons about the same. We have tried to make our website more lively and user friendly. We have indulged some graphics to make it more attractive. But it seems it backfired us. my site is http://www.myrealdata.com as well as Google page ranking of my Quickbooks hosting page has been dropped as well. It would be great if someone can help me out with expert suggestions.

                  On-Page Optimization | | SangeetaC
                  1

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.