replacing content on a page hurt rankings?

9 years ago

To be honest, it would be better safe than sorry. Write the new content on a separate page and see where it gets in the serps. if it is doing fine as well. THEN.. use a 301 from old to new.

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jeffreysloe

9 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

To be honest, it would be better safe than sorry. Write the new content on a separate page and see where it gets in the serps. if it is doing fine as well. THEN.. use a 301 from old to new.

I would also use a 301 redirect. You can always remove it once the changes take affect. I've heard different theories, but 90-180 days seems to be the time frame for a 301. Google webmaster tools may be able to give you additional information on this.

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DonConrad 9 years ago

If you have a good ranking I would not change anything. But if you have two, I would add content at the bottom of what's already there. Be careful like I said I wouldn't change anything like someone else said add a new page
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fpforum

9 years ago

If the page was ranking well with it's previous content then why change it? I guess if it lost rankings i'd try getting a little bit higher keyword density on the page and see if that helps. Maybe drive some more links into it as well... If that fails to work, I'd be looking to re-write the content on that page again.

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RealCasher

9 years ago

Even though google loves updated & dynamique content! but in your case you may lose ranking..

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MikeFriedman 9 years ago

Originally Posted by RealCasher

Even though google loves updated & dynamique content!

That is a myth. There are tons of webpages in the SERPs that have not been updated in over a decade and are ranking just fine.

I do not particularly like the 301 idea. If the content is fairly bad, I would improve it. If rankings fall, you can always change it back.
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fugenxuae

9 years ago

Hi, By updating your content you may lose your rankings but not so far again your rankings will be higher when you had your unique content...

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Nicole Sakoman

9 years ago

Originally Posted by SpartanENF

Lets say that a prior writer did a horrible job with more then a few pages on your site and you wanted to rewrite the content for each landing page. A few of these landing pages are actually ranking pretty decently would it be ok to rewrite them as long as you kept the keywords and the density some what equal?

bump for some input from some one more experienced

The best thing to do is leave it as it is, and create a new content (you can do it even with same KW and compete with those badly written content... that way you get more visitors...). Don`t mess with current content, because nothing good can happen from it!

Don`t spend too much time thinking about density, since Google is kicking out slowly density out of SEO... concentrate on LSI more and semantic search(that is a huge rank factor), with outbound links, and nice linkjuice flow on your website...

Hope it helps,
Nicole (:

BTW. 301 advice is also OK

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TeKn1qu3z

9 years ago

Yeah, Like some of the other posters are saying you could lose your rankings. It happened to me once. I saw one of my pages ranking on the first page and tried to SEO it a bit in the hope of generating more sales. But one or two days later I lost the rankings (especially in Google) and lost the income whatever I was earning before I updated the page.

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Cashone

9 years ago

My opinion is if they are ranking well as you say don't bother. Just make sure that you do some proof reading in the future before your pages get sent out to avoid it from happening again if that's possible.

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Tim3

9 years ago

This sounds like this is a hypothetical question you have written OP but...

If you change the content on a page it will undoubtedly tank it for a while, until it goes through the due processes that rank it, if you have improved the page it should recover, perhaps to a better position than before.

The first question is are those poorly written pages making money, and if so what is conversion rate? If it's good I would leave well alone.

Second thing would be how competitive are the terms you are ranking for?
With low competition, you should have no trouble regaining ranking.

Imo you should rewrite just one page of content, (the one which makes the least $) and then get it recrawled by using fetch in GWT if necessary.

Then wait, 2 - 4 weeks and see what happens, if it bounces back, do another, if it doesn't you will have your answer for definite.

If they are not making any/much dosh or the majority of the visitors fail to do what you want them to because the content is crap you have nothing much to lose by rewriting them anyway have you?

I would not use a 301 either.

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Dan Brown

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Tim3

Imo you should rewrite just one page of content, (the one which makes the least $) and then get it recrawled by using fetch in GWT if necessary.

Then wait, 2 - 4 weeks and see what happens, if it bounces back, do another, if it doesn't you will have your answer for definite.

I like the idea of rewriting atleast 1 page to see if it'll do any good. Even though it is ranking but I still feel bad about the content I'd definitely change it to what is proper. As we all know content is king, so if you have good and improved content on your website I am sure it'll rank again.

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TopSocialMarketing

9 years ago

Try to proofread and rewrite it by portions. Obviously if it's well ranked is because Google considers it relevant for for visitors. It means that even with that bad written content they find your website informative. Image what a well rewritten article can do gor your website then.