We have had our site for a little over three years at this point and during that time we have obviously traveled as much as possible and shared stories from everyplace that we’ve visited. There are times when we’ve looked back at our early days of blogging and thought to ourselves that we could or should have told that particular story differently. Or we’ve looked at a post from our early days and thought to ourselves that we weren’t engaged with as many people back then and should we re-share that experience with a new audience. Sure, we could simply re-blog the old post, but that doesn’t seem the same as taking a new slant on an older post.
We have, at times, realized that there were specific things that we missed about a place that we previously wrote about and then shared that information, but not gone back and looked at our original post from a place and considered doing a fresh take on it. We have, over the years, posted over 700 posts on our site, so the likelihood of people stumbling over old posts is relatively low, but at the same time, we don’t want to have a bunch of redundant material on our site. We do see some older posts being found through search engines, but there are some that just never get viewed after their original posting.
Obviously we strive to always create new and interesting content for our site and want it always to feel informative and fresh. With that said, we don’t travel to new places every week, so we do have to find ways to create new information about places that we have already visited. We usually do that by going into greater detail about a specific site within a city that perhaps we only touched on briefly in our original post or creating a summary of information where we have broken up the information in multiple posts.
We have mixed feelings on the thought of recycling old material in a new way. And if we do ultimately decide to create a new post on something we’ve previously talked about, should we delete the old post? Whatever we decide, ultimately we want to make sure that we do it in a way that is stimulating and interesting and doesn’t feel like a repeat.
Reblogged this on Tangible Day and commented:
Reblogging a blog post about recycling old blog posts; ironic?
A fun little read
I think it’s completely fine to recycle some material. After all, things change and I think people would appreciate being able to find up to date or more in depth information on your site, versus an old post about a trail that’s now closed to the public, for example, or a place that’s gotten much more crowded and is no longer as appealing.
But that’s just my opinion.
I find it important to update old material. Things change and you can also expand on old posts to give readers better information. Deleting old posts would mean losing any traffic that may come to them. I’ll often put a “Read also” link pointing to old post on new one
I have the plan on translating older entries into Spanish, as the first year it was English-only. But finding the time? It’s a good question. I usually try to do new material myself.
This is a question I’ve pondered as well. I know some bloggers who regularly recycle old posts, often with no revisions, and sometimes using ones only 6 months old. Which makes me wonder as a frequent reader, do I “like” it again or pretend I was never there?
I like your idea of using them but always bringing a new perspective to it.
I see refreshing old posts touted by some successful bloggers as a very valid strategy.
My own view is that I may not have read one of your old posts because it may not have been relevant to me when you posted it. A refresh, perhaps with a bit of SEO improvement, will make it more visible. I’m sure I’m not alone.
There’s even a self hosted WP plug in to help you do it.
I agree 100%! I just started a new series on my blog “FRANCE: REVISITED” to give myself permission to reflect and find new insights about my favorite places in France in which I have previously posted. I have always believed there are 3 parts to every trip: the planning, the doing and the reflecting!
Totally agree with your 3 parts 🙂
My early blogs were written with a very limited audience of family and close friends in mind. Furthermore, as I continued to write, my writing evolved as well as my perspective. I have no doubt that at some point I will go back and take another look at those early posts.
I think it’s fine. I mean peoples opinion do change so if you need to update something go ahead