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What Should You Do With Lousy Old Blog Posts?
We all have things in our past we’re ashamed of. I know there was one particular incident with a couple of day-old baguettes and a fox hunt that I’m extremely pleased to have gotten through with no photographic evidence.
Some of our past mistakes can’t be dismissed so easily, though – especially when they’re right there in your blog archives.
The other day, James bemoaned the fact that some of the Men with Pens’ first blog posts were scandalously mediocre. I believe his exact words were, “They sound like someone stuffed me in a suit and handed me a script.”
He’s got nothing to complain about. My old posts were generally so random they were actually making a collective run on the interstellar plane for God of Chaos, a coveted position that apparently necessitates a lot of haphazard references to various florae and faunae and a creepy tendency to drop in Latin for no obvious reason.
However well my old blog posts may have been doing on their political bid for Chaos, they still didn’t cut the mustard in the blogosphere.
I like to think my posts have gotten a lot better. They’re more on topic, less random, and hopefully still funny. I know James’ posts have gotten better, too, because he’s the one getting all the guest post requests, fandoration and awards.
But that still leaves one problem: What to do with old posts?
The impulse is to delete them, but that leaves big gaping holes in your posting history. Bloggers know how hard it is to build a reputation for consistent posting, and even if the old posts weren’t up to snuff (Does anyone actually use snuff anymore? Whatever happened to snuffboxes?), they are still evidence that we were here, we were proud, and we were posting, damn it. We earned this.
The other option is to edit them. This vaguely feels like some violation of journalistic excellence. After all, people came around and commented on those posts. They read them and liked them well enough, and to sneak in and change the structure around seems almost like cheating.
Of course, I’m a rogue. I advocate cheating a lot of the time. This is probably one of those moments.
You could simply rewrite the post without any notice. This works, but it’s kind of unfair. Better to be slicker than that. Try rewriting the post without changing it too much. Fix your grammar, jazz up your language, but don’t try to take the same topic and come at it from a completely different angle.
You can leave a little line at the bottom that says, “This post has been edited to super ridiculous excellence since its original posting. If you were a fan of the inferior grammar, my most sincere apologies.”
You could delete the post and re-use the same topic in your current line of postings. This lets you start from scratch, but it does leave you with that hole in your history I mentioned earlier (not to mention a loss of link love you might have accumulated). If you only have a few posts that you want to update, though, and they didn’t get a lot of love, this may not be a bad idea.
Then you get to use the topic, you don’t have to think of a post this week, and you got rid of your shameful torrid past with bland prose.
It’s okay. We’ve all been there.
I personally like the double-whammy. Update the old post without tinkering with it too much, and then write a brand-new post on the same topic. Come at it from a different angle or expand on it and give it everything you’ve got. Make it sing. Make it dance. Make it do the limbo while balancing a glass of water on its head.
Then link back to the old post. Acknowledge how far you’ve come. Use the new post to show how much you’ve learned. Remind your readers that no matter how great you were then, you have graduated all the way to freakin’ amazing now.
There’s no shame in having a bad post or two in your past. What’s shameful is not moving on. Get over it. That bad post can’t keep you down. You’ve got a great life now with all these other fantastic posts. You’ve got a better thesaurus and a really good storytelling tilt and a house in the country, damn it.
Look how far you’ve come.
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I agree.
I also think posting on a topic and saying “why I may have been wrong in the past” can help build credibility. It shows a willingness to reconsider your ideas if they are mistaken.
My first reaction was why dig up old stuff? Let archives remain archives. Barely anyone will go further than 3 months when going through your blog.
I wouldn’t tinker my old posts at all – and mine are quite crappy! But I will take your advice Taylor, and write a new post linking to an old one and see if my opinions have changed since then and if I’ve improved as a blogger.
It’s actually going to be a fun exercise! Once I stop cringing at my old posts of course…
Samar´s last blog post…Are you staff blogging yet?
Good timing with this post. I just completely deleted 2 years worth of posts. It was hard to do, but I think our instance may be an exception.
Laws have changed in our industry and so much of what we had written is now, well, illegal.
Plus I found a couple of rockstar writers to help with the new posts
@ Marc – Ha, and I bet you two of those rockstar writers said, “Hm… why not rework the posts you have to save time and money, and get them the way you’d like?”
Good point, though. In certain industries, inaccurate information can be problematic beyond some reader making a small mistake. I think the legal, real estate, medical and credit repair industries are some of those.
@ Samar – Well, who digs up old posts? Plenty of people. Take any of our categories, for example. Click one, and posts are brought up in alphabetical order, not in chronological order. If one of those horrible old posts starts with A, then it’s one of the first that people might click.
Then they’ll read and say, “Ugh. Who the hell wrote this?” Unfortunately, I did.
@ Patrick – One thing I’ve noticed in my years online is that people LOVE it when you are a total rockstar AND you goof up AND you admit it. It doesn’t take anything away from your credibility and adds to the humanism. It makes a person just like the reader – real, prone to flaws and not perfect.
S’a good thing.
I would take a different approach personally. I would annotate them with big bold writing to alert potential readers to the changes, and then write a new posts analyzing how the laws had changed in the last two years.
Patrick Vuleta – Lawfully Green´s last blog post…Federal Court Supports Action Against Mine Expansion
Tei,
I’m definitely a “rethink it, do a new post, link back” type. I (usually) keep my blog fairly tight, with about six or seven angles on the same topic day-in-day-out, so in effect that’s what I’m always doing. Coming at a topic we’ve discussed before, looking for a new tip, a new aha! moment, or a new story to illustrate it.
Plus interior links are still pretty good for SEO, and entirely within your control. What’s not to love?
If I was worried about old grammar or sentence structure I’d go back for a tweak. But if there’s anything way back there that’s naive or peculiar, I’d leave it. For the rare person who does start at the beginning (I do, but I’m funky like that), I think seeing your evolution is part of the charm.
I hope so, anyway!
James,
Did I ever mention the alphabetical archives drive me bats? How about chronological or subtopics, hm? Hm? And maybe assign the hideous job of giving each one a one-line summary to a certain rogue so there’s a little enticement to click?
Ooh, that would be sweet. Why didn’t I mention that before?
Prob’ly thinking I’d stirred the pot enough for one lifetime.
Regards,
Kelly
Kelly´s last blog post…“We actually failed our way to success†—The Steve McKee Interview
I have two blogs, and I’d say I’ve gone back to about a third of my blog posts and made minor changes, either to correct a writing error or to add a fact or two.
Sometimes I’ll also think of other categories the post should be in, or I’ll think of a new category.
John Soares´s last blog post…The 20 Crucial Tips for Writing Great Multiple-Choice Test Questions
It’s funny; I’ve only done my blog a few months, and already I feel like I’ve found much more of a distinctive voice. (My early posts were definitely of the suit-and-script variety.) I like the idea of revisiting a topic, maybe even taking an old blog post and annotating it with tags like “New information:” or “What I thought then/What I know now.” It shows growth and a commitment to improvement.
Catherine Cantieri, Sorted´s last blog post…You’re invited to a free iPEP preview webinar!
I had to stop and think for a second….I’ve never written anything about which I’ve been ashamed. It never even occurred to me.
What I write is what I’m feeling at the time…and generally it’s something to be honored (no matter how inane maturity might make it appear). We’re always on a growing journey at every stage of our lives.
Data points, Barbara
Barbara Ling´s last blog post…Glee
Hi Tei,
I really liked reading this post! It’s so coincidental that I just clidked on the archives here in this blog and read a post on headlines by James and read all the comments (comments here are really good!:) I need to do lot of reading on those again, with your kind permission, of course.
All my previous posts and work look pretty lacking in many areas tone, grammar (of course, it’s improving by the day), and maturity of thought… but I like them. They show my journey all through.
But, does someone take it that way. So I want to go back and redo them to save my modesty.
Thanks for the great post!
Solomon´s last blog post…Ride the crest of the writer’s learning curve!
I actually wrote a blog post on this very topic last week. In it, I talk about the power of updating older blog posts not just because the post was badly written but also because links get changed, news bits are no longer relevant, new pieces of information are introduced, etc.
What I submitted in my blog post was that, when I do update a blog post (and I do mean “update” in the truest sense of the word, not just “edit” or “revise”), I do an email broadcast to my blog RSS or email list letting people know that the blog post has been updated.
This brings in a flurry of brand-new traffic. Because, logically, there are many people who have joined my list and/or subscribed to my RSS feed since the post was made, and whom may never have read it at all. It just gets buried in the archives.
(Another tip is to not put dates on your post, and in some cases change the post date to today, in order for the post to reappear on the front page as if new.)
Then, I add the blog post link (and a brief message, likely the same one in my broadcast earlier), to my autoresponder sequence at the end of the cycle. That way, people who join my list in the future will eventually get to the blog post — thus creating additional traffic and revenue from recycling older blog posts.
I have several months worth of blog posts and blog updates in my autoresponder cycle, and it keeps bringing new traffic, more comments, and more ad revenue from subscribers — snowballing over time as my list gets bigger and bigger.
For posterity, here’s the blog post in question (please delete the link if it’s inappropriate for this blog):
http://www.michelfortin.com/turn-blog-traffic-machine-5-tips/
michelfortin´s last blog post…This Short Video Blew Me Away
I like this idea: “This post has been edited to super ridiculous excellence since its original posting. If you were a fan of the inferior grammar, my most sincere apologies.â€
but rather than editing the original, just post a new one based on the original so both posts are available and link them (for comparison purposes)
Patrick – Fessing up to your mistakes works in every walk of life. I have friends who had serious other-friend issues because they couldn’t just sack up and apologize and fix a problem. The same applies to blogging, writing, business – just about everything.
As for the legal issue, thankfully I have less of a problem with this. I try not to opine on topics over which I lack full command, and that saves me from – well. Really, most topics. I don’t know a lot. But for people in constantly-changing industries, I can definitely see how recycling and updating posts would be a necessity, not just a handy way to keep your archives from looking dated.
Samar – You’d be surprised. People will find old posts through search engines and links. I once had a huge block of people come by a post that was a good two months old because another blogger linked to it for relevance to a topic. Ghosts always come back to haunt you. Woooooo!
Marc – Hey now. You’re a rock star. Get the show on. Let’s play.
Kelly – Well, yeah, but you’re a professional and stuff. Some of us had growing pains.
John – Oh, yeah. Categories. I forgot about categories. Damn it, James, I forgot about categories!
Catherine – Voice is another great reason to update posts. It often takes a few months of blogging to settle on a consistent voice, and the difference between then and now can confuse your readers. Did they bring on another writer? What happened?
Barbara – Well, jeez, don’t start now! I don’t want to be the shame-creature. That would be a horrible thing to put on my business cards.
Solomon – That’s one of the biggest things about the blogosphere: it’s public. I would never bother feeling ashamed of journals I kept years ago, but that’s because no one else will read them and judge them. A blog asks other people to come, and judge, and make their opinions based on the quality of the writing’s argument. And yeah, for that reason, making sure you express yourself as you meant to can be a bigger deal for your readers.
Michel – Thanks for coming by. I wasn’t aware of your blog before, but James tells me I should ridiculously honored, and so I am. Thanks also for the extra tips – definitely well worth keeping in mind if you know how to manipulate your blog for dating etc. I liked your focus on drawing new traffic. It definitely helps mitigate some of the problems with updating if you can make a post work three times as hard simply by bringing it back into circulation.
@ Tei – Dating? No, you got it all wrong, Michel’s into copywr-… Oh. You mean *that* kind of dating.
@ Kathleen – I think I’d try your route, if it were me. “Here’s how I used to suck. Now that I’m all grown up and smart, here’s how amazing I am now. Compare!”
@ Michel – I’ll have to go check that out myself. I’m behind on my feed reading this week, but updating older posts has been on my mind lately. I also think, as you mention, that it’s important to make sure older posts still continue to get attention. They were good then, they’re still good now.
@ Solomon – We take pride in our comment section and love having new people join in with their thoughts. (Join in, new people. Come, come!).
I agree as well. Older posts show a journey at times, and that’s quite cool. Unfortunately, new readers don’t see a journey – they see an inconsistent quality or level of information. Ouch.
@ Barbara – I don’t think Tei meant ashamed in that sense in the least. We tend to be pretty confident creatures on the Pen Team. But I recently found an old post where I’d spelled weird two different ways (it looked right at the time!) and felt, “Oh god. What will people think? I can spell onomatopoeia but I can’t spell weird?”
My philosophy on inferiorly written old post is this – let them stand.
Our time is finite, and tinkering around with old post that by this point don’t get much traffic anyways is a colossal misappropriation of time and energy.
Moreover… people will see with their own eyes that your writing has progressed from point A to point B. Mine sure has.
All this said… I *love* your idea of taking an idea from an old post and rewriting it and posting it new. I wouldn’t even change the angle, though. I’d take the same basic route but make sure that this time it’s sparkling. I’d also add more detail to the post if it would prove to enhance it.
I guess if you had tons of traffic at the time you wrote your original post this strategy may not be prudent. No… actually… if it was old enough, it won’t matter. It won’t be fresh in people’s minds. And if it was an important enough subject to share then, it will still come across as an asset if you share it now, particularly if it’s all polished up and ready to go.
Bamboo Forest – PunIntended´s last blog post…Why You Should Accept Everything in Life Just the Way it is
You know Tei, James mentioned his old posts to me once and I believe the word he used was “crap”. LOL!
And I’m one of those people who goes back and reads old posts. Every time I come on here I’ll find a few more that I haven’t read yet. And yes, some of the older one’s suck (sorry James – this is more of the pot calling the kettle black).
I did delete several of my early posts. I got a few months in (site is not quite six months old now) and looked at the posts and decided they just didn’t fit with the direction I was going. I’d done them at the beginning, thinking I was heading one way, and sort of veered in another better direction. So they were really out of place. None had comments, so easy to delete.
I will quite likely revisit old posts one day and review or rewrite them. In just the last few months I’ve notice that my ‘voice’ and writing has changed, thankfully for the better!
Melinda´s last blog post…How to Write Copy That Keeps Readers Attention
This is why I come here; there is always a fascinating, usable idea here.
I’ve been blogging only for two months, but writing for many years, and you’re right, it is painfully embarrassing to read my own words of the past. Never thought of turning that around creatively.
Thanks!
Kaushik´s last blog post…Awakening is Simple – FREE!! ebook excerpts
When I find a blog I like, I go to the archive and read their very first post. It’s a fascinating and nurturing activity. (Oh… King James was writing like this only xx months ago? Do I have hope for myself…?
) So please don’t delete them.
Beyond the changes in writing style and factual changes over time that need to be addressed, I find it interesting to see the change of topics and perspective over time. Even with a blog like Men With Pens, which sticks to the topic of better writing and blogging, there are shifts in finer level topics. With personal development blogs, the shift can be huge sometimes. Again, it’s fun to watch the evolution of a blog.
I like Michel’s suggestions. Thank you.
Akemi – Yes to Me´s last blog post…Ask The Readers: What Is Romantic Love?
Yes… I have to admit this post made me go back to your very first posts and start reading them to compare them to the later work. Hehe.
I read the comment the exact same way.