It’s been a few days since we looked at another item on the Google algorithm criteria list. Matt has been a little busy lately so I took the liberty of moving on to the next term for him: age of content.

Between time-consuming projects I was able to grab a little time to find out why he thinks the age of your content is important:

“Fresh content is definitely a plus and it keeps people coming back. But it’s not unusual to see sites ranking within the top 10 that aren’t fresh at all. Instead, they’re older sites that might have been one of the first resources on the Internet to discuss that topic. One of the best ways to take advantage of the trust that goes along with aged content is to create a way for older content to be archived on your site. Don’t make a bunch of changes and pitch the old stuff. It can rank well, add PR and trust to your site, and bring in new visitors. Even if the old stuff isn’t as up to date as other content on your site, it can draw in visitors who can then discover your newer content.”

A lot of website owners will ask about older content. Should they delete it? Should they keep it around?

Matt has a good point, here. The older content on a site is likely to have more incoming links, more search engine trust, a higher PR, etc. That good standing in the eyes of Google and the other search engines can not only spread to other parts of your site, but it can also help get people to your site for the new content.

So why do search engines trust old content more so than new content?

Let me answer that question with another question. Who do you trust more: your oldest friend… or a stranger you run into on the street?

You know that your oldest friend hasn’t tried to hurt you or take advantage of you or use you for malicious purposes. Chances are… they aren’t going to. But this new person - the stranger - is another story. The strange, new person probably won’t do any of those things to you either. But you can’t be as sure. You have to regard them with cation.

Google and the other search engines do the same thing. Content that has been indexed for years isn’t likely to change. It’s not likely to suddenly sprout up a link farm or malware. Google trusts that content because it “knows” that content well. They’re like dear, old friends.

So instead of casting your old friend (old content) out on the street when you make changes, try to find a way to keep it around. You’ll obviously want to remove information that’s time-specific and irrelevant to visitors today. But sometimes even that content can be of value - not only for your visitors, but also for your site.