Forget fresh content - it's old stuff that you need

[fisicx]

I've got a website that has been around for years. I haven't updated anything in ages and some of the contewnt is wildly out of date. I don't even check the stats anymore. Google sends me money each month which covers the hosting costs so I'm quite happy.

But I did check the stats yesterday and got a pleasant surprise. I rank top or near top for all sorts of things. On some searches I even appear to beat wikipedia.

So to all those who keep pushing the SM thing or about how important it is to blog; remember that boring old longer lasting content can trump the whizz bang website.

In my case content is king (as there doesn't appear to be many linky things going on)

 

[JonathanSEO]

I'm guessing this is a Facts website or an educational one.

Evergreen content can rank forever in some SERP's but it's not going to cut it others.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Its been all about semantic content for the last 6+ years.
Google has to build its collation of associated keywords using resources that already exist. Creating a spin on that content may help but its still the same old same old.

 

[Vistatico]

So it means it is harder now to get ranked with a new site?

 

[fisicx]

Which is why you should publish on your OWN website not someone elses. Doesn't matter what type of site it is, good content that has been around for years can rank well for the right keywords. And every visitor is a potential customer.

In my case it's worth $5/day form adsense. $2000/year for doing diddly squat is good for a few beers.

 

[PeachySEO]

It's great that this has worked for you, but as Jonathan as pointed out this is not going to work across the board.

If anything, I'd bet the age of your site and the amount of authority and trust it's been able to build is going to be one of the biggest ranking factors.

 

[RedEvo]

Yup. I've got one site in particular that earns about £200/month. I never "SEO'd" it when I built it, never linked built to it nothing. It just took root

d

 

[amac]

Which is why you should publish on your OWN website not someone elses.

Sadly, some folks rush to social media or some other third party site with their content before looking after their own content. You'd think the transient nature of the Internet would have resonated by this time - It's so important to own your platform and probably now more than ever.

 

[DPOM]

As above - as you've found, evergreen content can rank well without constant updating yada yada yada

But, some terms are classed as Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) which means Google ranks fresh content for these types of queries favourably. If this applies to you then there are some good opportunities to create fresh content regularly to hoover these up and rank for certain terms quickly and well.

Here's a link (there is a recent version of this that explains more but I need another coffee and I assume anyone reading this knows where Google is ;-) )

 

[Maslins]

Daft question, but what counts as new content?

Ie, say fisicx tweaked a couple of words on a longstanding page. Would that mean Google would see some activity, hence assume the owner's keeping it up to date and therefore that it deserves additional credit?

 

[LeighCar]

Well this is the same thing as it happened with my blog also, i just write 3 posts in numbers in last august but from the month of April of 2013 its Alexa is decreasing day by day as by the only one keyword .
Con grates for your improvement of your website.