Is rewriting old articles going to upset Google?

[freebetsfreetips]

Hi,

Does anyone know if recycling old articles with new a URL and content would be looked on as bad practice by Google? The issue is, some of our football match betting previews from last season are appearing in search results ahead of the newly written ones.

Would anyone who is knowledgeable about SEO be willing to give their advice on which of the following options we should take to minimise problems with google and rank well in the search results?

1. just post a new match preview and leave it up to google whether to rank it higher than last season's equivalent preview
2. rewrite the old preview to be relevant to the upcoming match, change the URL and published date and post it again
3. do 301 redirect from the old preview to the new (would this be fine with google?)
4. write and post a new preview and request google removes the old post from their index.

We ranked well for a couple we had rewritten, perhaps because the articles in question retained some 'juice' (if they indeed did), but not sure if Google will see this as cheating and kick us down the rankings for doing so.

Many thanks in advance for any help.

Best wishes,
Dave Hanson
Sports Editor - freebetsfreetips.com

[thebookiesoffers]

you could put the season in the title tag.

also why not go back to the old article and put a link in it to the new one

I wouldn't want google removing old articles at all

[lots0]

Your #1 would be my pick.

Write more articles. You want more content... that will rank.

If you try to re-cycle your articles... that is nothing more than "Spinning" or "Spun" content, google frowns on Spun content.

[LosCasinos]

Hi,
sorry to upset you, but Google considers such rewriting measures as cheating. Try to check your rewritten article for uniqueness.
I don't wanna demonize Google algoritmes, but it just comes from my own experience

[freebetsfreetips]

Hi

Thanks for the replies but I think a few of you have misunderstood. We're not spinning (unless I dont understand the term). To give an example, google might show one of articles for newcastle v man united from 2011, higher than a new article for a game happening this week. What we sometimes do is ammend the url of the old article to reflect the new date (eg, the main bit, "newcastle-v-man-utd-etc-etc" stays the same but the date at the end of the url changes) and then post our new article to that url, ammending the meta description/tags as well for the new date.

Re bookiesoffers suggestions:

you could put the season in the title tag.
===
The title and meta description would have the dates in...doesn't stop people clicking on an old article. People can be hard to fathom!
===
also why not go back to the old article and put a link in it to the new one
=====
Similar to above, we've tried that but if people click the old article they tend to just hit back when they realise it's old, even if we have a bold, clear link right at the top of the page for the latest game. People can be hard to fathom, so I hear.

Cheers all. Any further thoughts would be appreciated.

[thebookiesoffers]

the newcastle man utd one isn't online yet is it?

[lots0]

...What we sometimes do is ammend the url of the old article to reflect the new date (eg, the main bit, "newcastle-v-man-utd-etc-etc" stays the same but the date at the end of the url changes) and then post our new article to that url, ammending the meta description/tags as well for the new date...

You can not 'ammend' a URL, you can only create a new one.

So let me get this straight (please correct me if I am wrong)

You have a popular article at
mysite.com/newcastle-v-man-utd-article date

Then you have a new article but you put the article up on this url
mysite.com/newcastle-v-man-utd-new article date

Hoping that using this type of URL format will give you a ranking boost?

[freebetsfreetips]

You can not 'ammend' a URL, you can only create a new one.

So let me get this straight (please correct me if I am wrong)

You have a popular article at
mysite.com/newcastle-v-man-utd-article date

Then you have a new article but you put the article up on this url
mysite.com/newcastle-v-man-utd-new article date

Hoping that using this type of URL format will give you a ranking boost?

Hi,

The idea is not to get a rankings boost as such, but to attempt to make our most recent article (i.e. the most relevant to a search of 'Newcastle v Man United Betting Tips 7 October') rank at all. On occasion Google seems to pick up last season's Newcastle v Man United preview and rank than ahead of the new one. As such, we're not trying to steal a march on Google or customers, but rather do what the customers would want, i.e. make the preview that appears in the search results relevant to the search they have typed.

Does that make sense?

Thanks again.

[lots0]

...Does that make sense?

Nope...

I understand now what your doing.. but it makes no sense at all as far as SEO goes.

You would be far better off to use the current article's title and the current date in the URL.
You want the Search engines to find information on your current articles.
By 're-using' another article title with a new date as the new articles URL you are messing with the SE's finding and displaying your current article based on the article's title and content. In other words your giving the SE's bad data (garbage) and you expect them to give your site a ranking boost for that?

also, as a ranking factor google has devalued keywords in the URL, sometime ago. Page title, inbound/outbound anchors and the pages latent semantics carry far more weight in ranking than keyword rich URL's.

If you do articles one after another on the same subject, be sure to have a page where all your articles are listed by date and title, make sure the list page is well linked internally and linked between new and old articles.

Don't outsmart yourself... Google is looking for content to display in their SERP and they want to classify it correctly... helping them out with this, helps you out.

IMO, your better off spending your time and resources on your articles and on acquiring good quality inbound links to your articles.

[freebetsfreetips]

the newcastle man utd one isn't online yet is it?

It was just a hypothetical example.

[freebetsfreetips]

Nope...

I understand now what your doing.. but it makes no sense at all as far as SEO goes.

You would be far better off to use the current article's title and the current date in the URL.
You want the Search engines to find information on your current articles.
By 're-using' another article title with a new date as the new articles URL you are messing with the SE's finding and displaying your current article based on the article's title and content. In other words your giving the SE's bad data (garbage) and you expect them to give your site a ranking boost for that?

also, as a ranking factor google has devalued keywords in the URL, sometime ago. Page title, inbound/outbound anchors and the pages latent semantics carry far more weight in ranking than keyword rich URL's.

If you do articles one after another on the same subject, be sure to have a page where all your articles are listed by date and title, make sure the list page is well linked internally and linked between new and old articles.

Don't outsmart yourself... Google is looking for content to display in their SERP and they want to classify it correctly... helping them out with this, helps you out.

IMO, your better off spending your time and resources on your articles and on acquiring good quality inbound links to your articles.

That all makes sense and is what we suspected. Just annoying that google, with all its power and recency update, still cant put our articles in the right order sometimes!

[thebookiesoffers]

It was just a hypothetical example.

what i was getting at is it wasn't online so not giving the search engines much time to rank it. What I'd do is link from the old article to the new one, get the article live a little earlier and also increase the amount that sit on the homepage so it gets maximum juice from your site.

Also get sharing them on twitter, facebook etc

[ksgboy]

I think if you do it right then ok

[Penny Cooper]

yes, thats true, if you fallow all the steps properly means, then its ok, no problem.

[casinorecommender]

Google is always hungry about content food! Fresh content of course! Rewriting is harder than a brand new article writing. But you should have an adequate amount of information about your topic! Write more with rich wording and perfect grammar and never focus on SEO!