Some people never sit still. My grandmother for instance, although she’s now in a wheelchair, is constantly moving about. Half out of the wheelchair, standing up to get something, sitting down again, rolling the chair here, rolling it there. That’s actually very healthy of course: she should keep moving about, as long as she doesn’t overdo it.
Some people are fidgety online. Starting a blog here, starting another one there and trying out several free webhosts at once. This may suit their personality, but it is unlikely to help get them google traffic. Google, like most people, likes predictable. It likes to see the same content at the same place for years. The content may change a bit to fit current state of things, but if content suddenly disappears – that’s not good. If a page was about dogs one day, it should not suddenly be about cats. It’s even worse if it’s suddenly gone. Instead, if you want to write about dogs somewhere else, use the first page as a place to link to your new dog breeding blog. Minimize the content perhaps, but don’t delete the whole thing altogether.
Fine tuning is another matter – that’s as good for google traffic as it is for my grandmother to fidget.
Why is it not good to just delete stuff? Deleting stuff that links to whatever other online content you have are gone as well. And while fresh links help for content to be found, what helps even more is old trusted links. Of course the only way to get old trusted links is to have two things going for you:
- your content has to have been there for a while at that URL
- some other trusted website (aka a high quality website that has a good link profile of its own) linked to you years ago
Notice that this just can’t happen if you keep moving about. Your website can’t turn into a trusted website if it’s abandoned (or worse, deleted) after a year or so. And if you’ve started a blog just for the sake of linking to your squidoo lenses, deleting it means the links to those squidoo lenses disappear before they have a chance to mature. Worse – the links people placed TO your blog are also no longer worth anything.
So here’s my lesson for today: if you decide that some online property of yours is no longer worth developing, don’t delete it. Just let it sit there – and before you leave it to obscurity and abandonment, maximize the links you can get FROM that online property to your current online webprojects. If it’s self-hosted you should do a 301 redirect to whatever current project you have that is about the same subject roughly.
And who knows – you might look at your squidoo stats one day and see a referrer or two that looks vaguely familiar: it’s that abandoned blog suddenly picking up traffic. Don’t laugh, it might happen. Don’t laugh – as long as google doesn’t think your blog is spam, it WILL count those links and they WILL contribute to the success of your website/blog/lens. It may be only a small contribution, but what have you got to loose?
More SEO for squidoo tips.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I always feel like I must be missing the boat because I don’t “fidget” enough, trying out a zillion things. I have a routine and I stick to it.
Mulberry – you’re my personal example of a successful lensmaster – so don’t sweat it. Your routine works, why would you want to change it?
One of these days, I will get into a proper routine…I am getting there but it is taking awhile. This internet butterfly has been trying out the nectar available all over the place but she is gradually learning to stay bit longer in the places that are the sweetest for traffic!
Oh, crikey, could that be the start of a blog…….
AJ – I don’t think you’re that much of a butterfly. Have you ever deleted blogs or lenses? It’s good to promote all over… It’s not good to delete that promotion just because you think it’s not working.
Posted about this in Squidlog http://squidlog.com/topics/blog-commentaries/lensmaster-blogs/continuity