Do Search Engines Get Bored ?

[Lampard]

If a site seems to 'work' - the visitors (mostly new) appear happy with the content/structure etc, and the search engines are happy to rank it - is there any value in making small, regular changes to the content to make it appear 'fresher' to the engines, even if this does nothing for the visitor ?

I've read that fairly static sites may get crawled less frequently but so what ?

I tend to the view that 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' - unless you can make the visitor experience more worthwhile. On the other hand, algorithms don't have feelings.

[donecweb]

It is definitely true that a site that doesn't change gets crawled less often. So I would say that putting in some current content on a regular basis would be a good idea. However, doing anything just to effect the search engines is not really a good idea because sooner or later the search engines will catch on and penalize the site. So my advice is to find some way to have a change in content for your visitors on a regular basis and not worry so much about the search engines. I have tried having some rotatable tips that changes each time the page is loaded but it doesn't seem to have had much effect. Maybe you could try using RSS.

[sharon]

SE like dynamical pages where is more fresh content and will come ofter to crawl your site back but i think that SE will not give better position to dynamical instead of static pages only because of simple fact that one is fresh and other not.
They are other factors that play here import role.

[Andy]

I tend to the view that 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' - unless you can make the visitor experience more worthwhile.

That's a great conclusion to make! Some of my most successful pages in terms of revenue have hardly changed in years but I agree that it would do no harm to update pages to keep them current if necessary, otherwise leave them alone. Some people fine-tune their pages but I prefer to move on and build more.

With a blog, you will find spiders crawling your pages daily if you keep adding content. So there is no hard and fast rule, it all boils down to common sense.

Interestingly, the Google sitemap standard includes a parameter to suggest how often your pages are updated to help them limit the number of times the Google bot visits your site.

[daveweb]

is there any value in making small, regular changes to the content to make it appear 'fresher' to the engines, even if this does nothing for the visitor ?

We have been tracing down search engines 24/7, and we found that websites which update their content on regular basis score higher rankings on both Yahoo and Google.

It looks like search engines hate content stagnation 


Web Site Development and Promotion
Search Engine Optimization SEO India

[mic_comte]

 The 2 last posts seem to say opposite things: Andy has got sites which didn't change since years and still rank well.
 Where is the truth?

[Andy]

Good question.

Google seems to like some old pages that provide relevant results and maybe it has something to do with matching the page with suitable adwords advertisers.

I also tend to try and keep adding fresh new content to a new site that I am starting since new pages can rank well quickly and then drift away from the top spots. Daveweb indicated that MSN seems to be quick to list new content but I find Google does this too but maybe not as fast.

The truth is that stagnant pages do rank well forever if they are favored by a search engine. I know since many of my pages never change and continue to draw traffic every day for years on end. I also found that new content draws traffic so the main thing is to build a content rich site gradually over time and if your content is good, it should get visited on a regular basis for many years from now.

[beamup]

I use two means.., 2 blogs that changes once in 2-3 days and a website that changes weekly. So I am pretty much give priority to blogs because I have to change it every 2 days .. only in short run, but the output is great..

Steve

[Andy]

I have found blogging to be the best possible way to get free, targeted traffic. It's not for everyone though. You have to have the ability to keep writing posts but a recent tip I read was that the more you post the easier it becomes and the better you get at it. I am finding this.

For example, with PPC traffic I may have to pay $0.20 per visitor but if my post generates 20 visitors I saved myself $4 in PPC spend. Not only this but the traffic should keep rising as more content is added to your blog. I have seen around 70 per day to some blogs I author so maybe that traffic would have cost $14 ?

Now I am thinking to create a blog purely to promote some affiliate product since I would make a few sales per day hopefully. So far my blogs have been mostly to just get traffic since I have interests that I like to write about, but without a clear idea of how to make money via the visitors. I just put some Adsense up there.

[theoder]

No, Search engine will never Get bored because if, you want to search any topic it will display different types of links. So, by searching all the links the time spends easily.

[BellaVega]

I realize the argument of fresh content seems good for PR and search engines. But as one said, there are stagnant sites that get high PR. While the obvious reason is SEO and lots of back links, could traffic affect PR. For instance, if you got tons of traffic to your site because it has a popular consumer product that people like, would Google see that and reward your site with higher PR?

[ruzzler]

really interesting discussion. I believe that both: daily improving content and building backlinks is needed to do parallel

[Andy]

Search engines tend to spider a web page daily if they think it is likely to change. Like my partners page was in the index on one day and out of it on another because during the site development phase the page either contained content or not as the script was debugged.

[joe12joe]

Content should be for people not for search engine. Your search engine may not crawl your website that often but your visitors can certainly be a regular follower of your website, if you are adding fresh and unique content that is grabbing the attention of the visitors.

About search engines, recently Google has made some major changes in its algorithm and they have penalized many high ranking websites due to poor quality of the content. You may get away with it now but sooner and later, it will catch you if your content is not unique. So keep it natural, update your website from time to time with a unique content and offer value to your visitors.

[Andy]

Has anyone experimented with regularly changing a section of a page, rather than the whole page? This could maybe be done via an RSS feed of say related news. I do this on one of my sites that maintained #1 ranking for it's main keyword for years. Although, this may be only one of the factors involved.