Should I update old well-ranked posts?

[DSG]

I have a Wordpress site and I think I have "split content" problem.

We use to publish preview info, i.e. "leaked images of iphone 5". Some weeks later, official release with official images. And some weeks later, our own review with quality content and pictures.

Sometimes the first post are well ranked, but the best content is in our review. How should I manage that?

I tried to make a page of each product and link it, but posts stills rank better than pages. And now I have several pages for the same keyword, ie:

mysite.com/2011/08/11/leaked-images-of-iphone-5

mysite.com/2011/09/15/iphone-5-official

mysite.com/2011/10/15/iphone-5-mysite-review

and all linked in mysite.com/phones/iphone5 ... and mysite.com/tag/iphone5

What do you think is best approach to this kind of site? Thank you!

[Highland]

There's a couple of options I can think of

1. 301 the preview to the article. I'm not a fan of this (more content is always better than less) but it would do what you want instantly. It's also not easy with your setup.

2. Edit your preview post and only add the link to the article. This is a much more natural solution. That should pass some of the PR from your well ranked preview to your less stellar article and it would help people visiting your site to see that there's more content to view (less bounce rate!).

[irvingw]

Updating old posts will not allow you the benefit of having your article getting into Google News. Here is what I would suggest.

1. Create a category page with links to all articles on that subject. Add some content and recent photos and videos to the category page.

2. On your related articles that are surfacing on top in the search results, link on top of the article to the newest article

[Marcus_Miller]

You often see this where an old, well ranked  post will have a chunk added at the top saying something like

"This is an old post, you maybe interested in this newer version or X, Y & Z"

Then you get the benefit of the old post and the new post but you keep the old one as is and use it as a funnel to other relevant content.

Of course, the specific approach depends on the post and the proposed updates but... this works for me.

Marcus

[OptimizeSmart]

If i were you, i would have 301 all the versions to the page which is ranking highest for the targeted keyword and put all the contents on that page to make it a super rich link bait.

[irvingw]

For Google News entry this strategy would simply not work. I also wonder if a single page would make you a subject authority. The bots may sense that you are trying to game them. with all those 301's.