Does the Homepage always need to have new content for better SEO

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by pmaro, Dec 7, 2009.

  1. #1
    I currently have a "Business news" section on the Homepage that I update on a daily basis.

    The problem is that it is taking too much valuable space on my Homepage (and not being clicked too often) and I was thinking to put that section on a subpage.

    But I would keep a link "Business News" on the homepage.

    By doing this, the Homepage content would not be updated on a daily basis but subpages would

    Is this a good direction to take or do I absolutely need to have new content
    on the Homepage for Google to better like my site?
     
    pmaro, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  2. KC TAN

    KC TAN Well-Known Member

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    #2
    I think as long as you have a link to your business page, that would be enough to keep the bots to come back and crawl the business page.
     
    KC TAN, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  3. extomas

    extomas Member

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    #3
    If you update your home page regularly then it will be cached more often by search engines. It is always good to update home page regularly.
     
    extomas, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  4. MarkAse

    MarkAse Peon

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    #4
    On site stuff is definitely hit or miss. My experience has always been to create content for humans first and use backlinks to attract search engines.
     
    MarkAse, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  5. Canonical

    Canonical Well-Known Member

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    #5
    When peoples say, "Search engines like you to update your site with fresh content!" they are basically saying that the search engines will crawl your site more often if your site is constantly changing. It doesn't necessarily mean those pages will rank better.

    And by fresh content, this does NOT mean that you should necessarily change content on your existing pages. The engines don't think less of your page because it's content hasn't changed in 5 years. If fact, if your page has already been optimized well via on-page/on-site optimizations and is ranking well then I would highly recommend you not change it. If you have a 50 page site and continue to change content on those 50 pages just to keep it fresh, you'll likely do more harm than good by constantly screwing up your rankings.

    The best approach to keeping "fresh content" on your site is to add new pages. Constantly adding new pages to your site does 2 things:

    1) If each time the search engines crawl your site they find a bunch of new pages then they will they will crawl your site more and more often until they feel they have reached a balance between their crawl rate and your content generation rate. If they start off crawling you monthly but you're generating content daily and notice 30 new pages when they return, they might change your site to a 2 wk crawl. If the after 2 wks when they return they notice 15 new pages then they might change to an every 7 day crawl. If when they return in 7 days they notice 7 new posts they might change your site to an every 3-4 day crawl. You get the picture. Eventually they will find a balance.
    So frequently adding new pages can make the search engines crawl your site more often which is great so that when you publish something, it gets crawled, indexed, and ranked faster.

    2) The 2nd benefit of adding new pages as a way of keeping your site fresh is that with each new page you get a new <title>, new <h1>, new <h2>s, new content, new page you can link to with different link text, etc. In other words, you get a new page that can target a totally different keyword phrase than you target on any other page of your site.

    The more keyword phrases your site targets, the better your chance of ranking for some of them... the more keyword phrases your site's URLs rank for, the more organic traffic you can get.

    It's always easier to get 500 pages to each rank for a different keyword phrase (for a total of 500 phrases) than it is to get a single page to rank for 500 different keyword phrases.
     
    Canonical, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  6. GameFriends.com

    GameFriends.com Peon

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    #6
    Canonical hit the nail on the head. When you look at sites such as facebook or other sites where the landing page hasn't change in years, you can safely assume they are still getting massive traffic for their static homepage. If you aren't getting the desired traffic for that specific page you need to reanalyze your onpage efforts: title, descrip, tags, header, onpage text as well as your backlink portfolio.
     
    GameFriends.com, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  7. zgerm

    zgerm Peon

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    #7
    search engines love the fresh content and you should update it regularly to ensure that search engine crawl your website.
     
    zgerm, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  8. HillaryDale

    HillaryDale Greenhorn

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    #8
    There are countless reasons why updating is significant but the number one reason is to retain the public's appeal in visiting your website.
     
    HillaryDale, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  9. skywriteing

    skywriteing Peon

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    #9
    Google doesn't rank sites, only pages. If pages on your "sites" are closely linked and themed, they may act like they are related unit. But in reality, each page could be hosted in a different country. Fresh content will get credit where ever it is located. Oh, and site Growth is a ranking factor. So adding pages is better than updating them if that's an option.
     
    skywriteing, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  10. skywriteing

    skywriteing Peon

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    #10
    The more a page is crawled, the better it ranks. One of the reasons being that traffic is a ranking factor.....even crawlers themselves count as traffic. Bots are usually traveling the same paths as visitors so it all goes hand in hand.
     
    skywriteing, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  11. SunstarShop

    SunstarShop Peon

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    #11
    Yeah, search engine love fresh content, but if your page change often search engine may think it is not very authority, the "fresh" i think shoud understand as new pages with new title,new relevent keywords, new content added, not just change the content of exist pages!
     
    SunstarShop, Dec 7, 2009 IP
  12. Traffic-Bug

    Traffic-Bug Active Member

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    #12
    You may want to update the home page content less regularly then. It is not absolutely necessary to have always fresh content on the home page to get high ranking. I have seen many sites that have static home page which doesnt change much that achieve higher ranking.
     
    Traffic-Bug, Dec 7, 2009 IP