Is Archiving Old Press Releases on Websites Beneficial From an SEO Standpoint

Posted: April 11, 2012

[caption id="attachment_9999" align="alignright" width="358"]© © MacX Fotolia.com[/caption]Does keeping archives of old press releases on a website, even though they are outdated (not the latest product or news), make sense from an SEO perspective? Is it beneficial? See what SEO guru Jason McDonald has to say in reply.

Q: Tammy Sapp asks: Does keeping archives of old press releases on a website, even though they are outdated (not the latest product or news), make sense from an SEO perspective?

A: Yes, absolutely beneficial, if the releases/news are keyword heavy / thematically tied to the subject. Google rewards bigger websites, so having lots of relevant content is definitely a good thing.

Thematically - meaning that the news releases are on a keyword theme - hunting, places to hunt, hunting dogs, hunting ducks, types of rifles used in hunting or fishing, types of fish, places to fish, etc.

What you want to avoid is dilution... Say you have a website that has content on hunting and fishing. Then you decide to no longer do anything with fishing but keep the old content online. That dilutes the keyword density of the site.

Another example, using POMA. The website has content on POMA as an organization for outdoor professionals and it has content on a sponsorship of a particular event, and lots of content is added about the event. The focus / theme of the site is diluted.

That's bad. Google likes closely connected thematic websites.

In general, it's not going to be a huge problem for most sites with news (press releases), though. Generally speaking the releases will be thematically unified.

Jason McDonald

Jason is one of the most sought after presenters on SEO on the country. He wows audiences with practical, easy-to-implement instruction on optimizing content so search engines find it. He focuses on ways to help companies leverage Google, Youtube, Twitter, and the Internet to help them market themselves.

Jason is presenting four sessions at POMA's 2012 Business Conference
in Tunica, Miss., Aug. 1 - 4.

Website & Blog Metrics Inside-Out
Build an Internet Buzz and Become an Expert
SEO Basics
Hands-on SEO