SEO Tip #57: How Important Is the Frequency of Updates on a Blog?

Matt Cutts: Content is much more important that the frequency of updating. If you’re thinking about posting for people then frequency might be a nice thing to have. If you show up on a blog everyday and it’s never been updated and you’re a person, then maybe you don’t show up every single day. Maybe you show up once a week instead.

So people have noted that the more often you post the more you and the more you have fresh content to the degree where sometimes some megablogs will have a new post every few hours so that any time you show up during the day you’ll have something new to read. That’s fantastic for users. Users like to see something different, not just the same static content whenever they show up.

But whenever you’re thinking about search engines it’s much, much, much more important to think about the quality of your content. For example on my blog I don’t post every day. Sometimes I don’t post every week. But I try to make sure that each post has something useful about it or some kernel that’s going to be helpful to people, that’s funny and that’s interesting.

If you need to take three weeks to do some research, and then that research results in a really good blog post, whether it be about the iPhone, or the Android market, or how well does gmail do web spam or whatever it is, how much does gmail detect spam compared to other webmail providers, whatever it is those original pieces of content often attract a lot more attention than those sort of follow-on blogposts where you’re talking about, “Oh I’m the hundredth person who wrote about an iPhone that got leaked and I don’t really have any new or interesting different insights.” Or something like that.

It’s a lot more interesting to take a little bit more time. Think about sites like Techdirt, Mike Masonick doesn’t just follow the headlines and write about everything just to write about something. He’s told me that he waits until he has some insight, some unique angle, something of value to add, some perspective that people haven’t really noticed on a particular story.

I think if as long as you’re doing that on your blog or on your website, it’s going to be a lot more useful. It’s going to attract a lot more links and it’s going to do much better in search engines. So don’t just pay attention to, “I have to have a certain frequency of update per day”, unless you’re really trying to make a play to get a lot of users, and you’re really caring about how people are going to be coming back to your site, as far as return visitors.

If you’re thinking about search engines, what’s more important is the quality of the content, rather than the frequency with which it’s posted.

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About the Author

Andy Johnson

Andy Johnson has been on the Internet since the its dawn(ie his first computer program was recorded on cassette tape) and his first hard drive cost about as much his current MacBook. His first byline was in 1993 for a local newspaper rag he eventually helmed, and his last “real job” was at a computer start up which ended when it ended. Throughout it all he’s freelanced and blogged. Now he is mesmerized by Search Engine Optimization forever trying to “rise to the top” for the right reasons. He’s been married to his wife Julia for as long as he can remember and has two lovely, wonderful children. He looks forward to sharing the latest in the technical best for all the online entrepreneurs.