One of the common issues I hear from my clients regarding their websites is related to content freshness. Let me explain this with an example: One of my clients owned a niche website focused on sailing education. Recently, they were concerned about a decline in website traffic. A competitor in the same niche had taken over certain keyword positions, leading to a drop in my client’s rankings. The client asked for my help to figure out why this was happening.
After analyzing both websites, the most glaring difference I found was the freshness of the content. Both sites had blog sections, but my client’s last post was from two years ago, and the content quality wasn’t great either. On the other hand, the competitor’s site was regularly updated with fresh, informative content, with the latest post just a few days old. I explained to my client that this was normal because their site was outdated and lacked content that could score well on Google’s Helpful Content System.
I emphasized that Google’s SERP is a dynamic index, and to rank higher, they needed to analyze their competitors, who regularly updated their websites. Without this, they would continue to lose traffic.
It’s important to understand that just because a website is performing well now doesn’t mean it will always maintain that level of traffic. The internet is a competitive and ever-changing environment, where the top rankings are reserved for sites that continually employ the best SEO strategies.
Why You Should Keep Your Content Fresh for SEO Success
Our universe is constantly evolving, and even the smallest atomic particles are in motion. Just as everything around us changes, so does the internet. The internet of the 1990s is vastly different from what we have today. Intent changes, and digitalization has made huge strides over the past decade. Search engines and directories allow billions of people to interact with websites from anywhere at any time through their smartphones.
Businesses, entrepreneurs, and anyone wanting to create a digital presence are flooding the internet. E-commerce has largely replaced physical stores with virtual ones. Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yandex connect billions of people with social networks, personal and corporate websites, and shopping platforms every day.
Given this, it’s essential to continually improve and update websites and software to enhance user experience. Search engines like Google constantly release algorithm and core updates to improve their systems. These updates can span hours, days, or even months.
While many updates are specific to the search engine’s internal operations, the ones that matter most for SEO are those that affect SERP results. These updates change or improve ranking factors, one of which is content freshness. More generally, we could refer to this as website freshness. If a website is regularly updated with fresh content, it sends positive ranking signals. However, freshness alone isn’t enough since Google considers over 200 factors when ranking web pages.
Additionally, considering Google’s limited resources, it’s clear that it only indexes websites it deems necessary. Given that hundreds of thousands of websites are created daily, Google is selective about which sites make it into its index.
Content freshness is a long-term strategy for SEO success. Publishing new content every day for a week won’t yield immediate results. However, consistently publishing relevant and useful content over several months will positively impact your rankings.
Moreover, rather than just creating new content, it’s effective to update existing content that isn’t performing well. This way, your site remains fresh, and crawler bots visit regularly, reducing the time it takes for your site to be indexed. This indexing time can vary between 15 minutes and 48 hours after publishing a page. If your content is highly valuable, it may be indexed within 15 minutes. Less valuable content takes longer, and content that offers little value to Google may not be indexed at all.
It’s important to note that this doesn’t solely depend on the quality of the content. The website’s technical infrastructure and the state of other pages on the site are also considered.
The Connection Between User Experience and Content Freshness
If your website has a loyal audience and users return frequently, it’s crucial to regularly update your content or add new material. Visitors appreciate websites that are both current and active. For example, a mattress company that consistently publishes new information about a product provides value to its customers. Similarly, product reviews from different perspectives on an electronic device can persuade customers to make a purchase.
Therefore, user experience is key to achieving high rankings on Google.
Measuring Content Freshness and Tracking Performance
There is no direct tool to measure content freshness. However, you can use Google and Bing Webmaster Tools to track how much traffic your content generates over time. Additionally, SEO tools with SERP tracking features (such as Semrush, Ahrefs, or SpyFu) can help you monitor the performance of your target keywords.
