Blog Home Page- Should It Be Static?

15 years ago

Originally Posted by beareroftruth

Static, for both reader usability considerations and SEO targetting ease considerations.

Matt Cuts did a talk, it's up on google video, that touches on why blog frontpages should be static. I forget the link, but if you search "SEO" on video.google.com, just find the matt cuts SEO lecture.

Thanks... if anyone else could give you opinions would be appreciated.

TedK

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Nathan Hangen 15 years ago

I don't necessarily think a static front page is necessary, but I do recommend a static page to link to for guest posts, blog comments, and other referrals. List all your accounts (facebook, twitter, youtube, etc) and some of your popular posts.
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wassim

15 years ago

you can go with anyone you want... both static and dynamic will be the same for the search engines. Go on with the one that you're more comfortable with. I am personally a web developer so I make dynamic pages for my clients, but for my personal websites, they are static because I easily edit them and upload again...

I read in High Rankings Forum once that search engines love pages that are being updated so often... so make sure that you update the content of your homepage whether you go with static or dynamic.

Here is a link to High Rankings Forum:
High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum

Regards,
Wassim

Originally Posted by tjk1058

Should the home page of your blog be static or dynamic? Is there an advantage to it being static?

If static I can always edit it so I wasn't sure if there was a SEO advantage to doing it either way?

Thanks,

TedK

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Ldimilo

15 years ago

It really depends on what you want to do with it...I use dynamic pages with a blog type setting...if you are modifying your wordpress blog as more of a mock static website, then the home page would be better in a page format.

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bgmacaw

15 years ago

Do CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, Drudge, New York Times, etc. use static home pages or pages that change content often?

Does Google like static content or fresh content better?

I think the answer to your question is there.

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jasonl70

15 years ago

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Do CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, Drudge, New York Times, etc. use static home pages or pages that change content often?

Does Google like static content or fresh content better?

I think the answer to your question is there.

So do we dismiss what a google engineer says (matt cutts)??

those sites do well for obvious reasons.. they are household names, get tons of traffic, and have massive links (CNN has over 12 million!).

They're also news portals, so of course they have changing content..

I've never had one of them outrank me (I have some industry specific news sites with ZERO original content) - so who's to say how great their seo is?

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-Jason

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bgmacaw

15 years ago

Originally Posted by jasonl70

So do we dismiss what a google engineer says (matt cutts)??

those sites do well for obvious reasons.. they are household names, get tons of traffic, and have massive links (CNN has over 12 million!).

I can keep on going on and on to smaller and smaller sites. Google loves fresh content and gives it a temporary bump in rankings. This is a clear fact that you can test for yourself.

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jasonl70

15 years ago

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

I can keep on going on and on to smaller and smaller sites. Google loves fresh content and gives it a temporary bump in rankings. This is a clear fact that you can test for yourself.

biggest myth in seo.. fresh does not mean relevant. googlebot may love fresh content, but google is about relevancy.

I've got a ton of static sites that do just as good as my 'fresh content' sites. I had a static PR2 site at #1 out of over 8 million, and it was there for 2 years - untouched. heck, googlebot rarely even came around. That site only recently slipped, and that's after I changed all of my onpage seo to target tighter keywords.

use fresh content when it makes sense for your site/market.

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-Jason

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bgmacaw

15 years ago

Originally Posted by jasonl70

biggest myth in seo.. fresh does not mean relevant. googlebot may love fresh content, but google is about relevancy.

True in that I didn't cover the topic completely. Fresh, relevant (as the algorithm, not a person, sees it), content will often be temporarily boosted above static sites. This is temporary thing though and that's why you see posts around here with people saying how they were on page one and are now nowhere to be found.

However, I have noticed that if you use fresh content on a site that has authority on one set of keywords to target new, related, keywords that it will stick much better. I've also noticed that using new or recycled (using Old Post Promoter plugin) material on blogs of lesser status in Google's eyes helped them maintain traffic levels better.

Originally Posted by jasonl70

I've got a ton of static sites that do just as good as my 'fresh content' sites. I had a static PR2 site at #1 out of over 8 million, and it was there for 2 years - untouched.

So do I. Once you've got authority for your keywords you can hold position on many low to mid level competition keywords. The main value of adding content then becomes capture additional long tails and perhaps branching out to related keywords.

Ultimately, I don't think it being static or not static matters a great amount for an established site. I do think having it dynamic helps with less established sites.

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houdy

15 years ago

How about a compromise and add the static content above the blog loop? Then you have both!

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fredhopkins

15 years ago

I think the bigger question is to understand what your market wants FIRST then create a system that serves them BEST. I have blogs with both static and blog fronts and they ALL do well in the search engines. Worry about what your market wants first. That way it wont matter where your traffic comes from.

As far as Matt Cutts is concerned, look more at what types of sites do well in your market and less at taking a blurb statement from him as an absolute. There is a lot of gray area in what makes you rank on Google.

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tjk1058

15 years ago

Thanks for all the replies... from what I can take out of this is that there is no real advantage to either one as it may depend on the niche.

The reason I was asking was that if you had a home page with ever changing content then if you were ranking well for a particular keyword and then all of a sudden you content that was ever changing pushed that "ranking content" to another page would you lose that traffic or would it be hopefully just transferred to the new page once that one gets indexed?

TedK

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bgmacaw

15 years ago

Originally Posted by tjk1058

The reason I was asking was that if you had a home page with ever changing content then if you were ranking well for a particular keyword and then all of a sudden you content that was ever changing pushed that "ranking content" to another page would you lose that traffic or would it be hopefully just transferred to the new page once that one gets indexed?

It depends if you're using site keyword targeting or post keyword targeting. To see the difference, look at the two blogs in my sig. One targets a very specific set of keywords while the other is all over the place.

If you're site keyword targeting, ideally you'll be targeted around one keyword or set of keywords so the change in content wouldn't really affect things that much. Every post is going to be coupled with the keyword in some way.

If you're post keyword targeting, each post is considered on it's own merits and the index page mostly gets referral traffic.

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lavaleekathy

15 years ago

It's entirely up to your own needs and what your blog is about, but I don't think a static front page is necessary, but I think a static page with links to guest posts, blog comments, is ideal! Its a great idea to list all your social networking accounts (facebook and twitter etc) on it for more contacts and why not add some of your popular posts to show visitors some great quality information the moment they look at it! Hope this helps you!

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Blog Home Page- Should It Be Static?

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