What SEO tactics are effective for optimising a site where content is changing very frequently (for example an online newspaper)?

[Greenie]

I have always worked with sites where content has a reasonably long life-span but need to now consider SEO for a site where content is changing very rapidly. I have read that Google will re-spider your content more frequently if it finds that it is changing frequently but are there effective ways to let the search engines know as new articles are published? Also, if content is removed within only a day or two of being published, can this have a negative impact on SEO?

[Matthew_Edgar]

Hey,

The same basics apply but I've found that links to the domain and authority of the domain matter more than page authority. In terms of fast indexing, make sure you have an RSS feed. Also, if you are trying to get accepted in to Google News, do make sure you have met those requirements: http://support.google.com/news/publisher/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40787. Having a news specific XML sitemap is also helpful: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74288

Why would you remove the content a day or two after publication? If you have an online newspaper, that content may still be relevant for some time after the original publication date. I've tended to keep news content around years after original publication and still gotten some traffic to those articles.

Given that, I've not has experience removing content that quickly but when I have removed content from news websites, I try to redirect the old url to the most relevant new article (if possible) or news category page (usually easier to do). This preserves link value, which is obviously important. For really old stories that don't have links or traffic, I set the article to return a 410 status on that URL to signal that page is removed permanently. Again though, I'd default to keeping the article around as long as possible.

Hope that helps.