Content

[APH]

Hi,

We produce research report on same topic every year (e.g. cost of patrol in different part of the country) and publish them to a new url every time.

What is the best way to do it?

• create new page every year or
• update the existing research report with modification

Considering long term benefits.

Thanks

[SebastianCowie]

If it were up to me, I'd be creating a new page each time. Then within the closing paragraph of each report I'd link to previous reports for those that are interested in the historical stats.

Think of it this way - SEO changes on a regular basis, if we went back and modified all our old posts to reflect the new data, then we'd have no archive of previous updates, or a single post would be so large, that no-one would ever read it.

++ You could have one "master post" in which you summerise all of your previous years reports. That way those that just want the abridged version can read that one, whereas those interested in the nitty gritty can see each year in detail.

[Keszi]

Hi,

In order to answer this Q. lets check the positive and negative spots of each.

1.) New page every year:

• (+) every year your readers get a clean statistic with the patrol prices
• (+) you have a "series" which then can be checked from year to year (just as SEOmoz had that SEO Industry Survey
• (-) it has less link juice flowing in (since each year you will have separate pages, separate links, etc)

2.) Update and existing page on yearly basis

• (+) you get more link juice flowing in (since the page each year, when statistics will be published will get some new and new links)
• (+) people get to "know" your URL (another SEOmoz example: www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change)
• (-) the statistics will be less clear (too much information on one page)

In each cases you will have to create a balance: how much can you invest in creating the "buzz" around your topic, how fast is it picked up by other parties, etc.

If it was me, I would go with the second option, creating one each year (and at the end of the article just point out the last years statistics, because some readers could be interested in comparing).

I know that there are a lot more differences between the two options, I just picked out a few. But I hope that already helped you.

Greetings,

Istvan