Content relaunch without content duplication

[macronimous]

We write great Content for blog and websites (or at least we try), especially blogs. Sometimes few of them may NOT get good responses/reach. It could be the content which is not interesting, or the title, or bad timing or even the language used.

My question for the discussion is, what will you do if you find the content worth audience's attention missed it during its original launch. Is that fine to make the text and context better and relaunch it ? For example:

1. Rechristening the blog - Change Title to make it attractive
2. Add images
3. Check spelling
4. Do necessary rewrite, spell check
5. Change the timeline by adding more recent statistics, references to recent writeups (external and internal blogs for example), change anything that seems outdated

Also, change title and set rel=cannoical / 301 permanent URLs.

Will the above make the blog new? Any ideas and tips to do? Basically we like to refurbish (:-)) content that didn't succeed in the past and relaunch it to try again. If we do so will there be any issues with Google bots? (I hope redirection would solve this, But still I want to make sure)

Thanks,

[TomRayner]

Hi there

It sounds like you've got all the basis covered.  To avoid any form of duplication, it is important to redirect the old version to the new URL as soon as possible, preferably simultaneously when the new blog is published.  That will ensure the two won't be indexed together, plus it makes sense that an updated would be redirected.

There are other methods as well - you could simply remove the old blog post page and return a 404 (which isn't a bad thing), update the canonicals like you say or add a robots instruction to prevent the page from being indexed.  But I think a 301 redirect here would be best, as it would pass on any link equity (no matter how small) the previous page did earn, it's one of the quickest methods to remove old pages from the Google index and for continuity's sake I think it makes sense too.

The fact that you're changing the old post in a substantial way might mean that you could potentially keep both versions on your site, but only you'll be the judge of how unique it is.  I think, to remove any doubt, you should use the 301.

Hope this helps.