Why Dated Content And Dead Links Will Punish Your Site

If you're updating your website, the last thing you want is dated content and dead links. But sometimes that's unavoidable. Learn why dated content and dead links will hurt your site's search engine rankings in this post!

Whether it’s a blog or a list of FAQs, so much of what we now find online has at least some degree of living and breathing potential, if it’s ever going to go viral.

But sometimes business owners hit the publish button on outdated material without even realizing it: not because they’re being negligent about their website but because that's just how things get done.

Part of what makes the internet so special is that there are so many different ways for content to spread. The problem is, some of those spreading mechanisms aren't always as ethical as they seem.Unfortunately, web pages that have been updated with fresh information can suffer from a variety of old-fashioned problems.

What if you had a blog post that's no longer valid but still receives hundreds if not thousands of visitors a month? A content marketing strategy such as this could put your site at risk for upsetting search engine spiders because search engines consider outdated content and dead links to be just as harmful (if not more) than spam.

It's a bit of a bummer, but it's true: Search engines can penalize your site for outdated content. If an article is no longer relevant and you haven't updated the information, Google might not rank your website as highly as it once did.

Here's a fantastic example of how this can play out in the real world:

Let's say you run a small business that sells designer shoes and handbags. You're not able to keep up with all the new releases, so you decide to update your site with articles about shoe trends each season.

While in most cases this is great for user engagement, it could also hurt your search engine rankings in two ways . First, web crawlers will have to resurvey everything on your site to determine if it's truly outdated.

And second, this can hurt your website in terms of how well Google and other search engines rank you. If a visitor goes to your website only to find outdated content, they might leave without even exploring the rest of what you have to offer. This can decrease the opportunity for a new customer to find you from an expired content marketing strategy.

Now that we've discussed what outdated content and dead links can potentially do for your site's ranking, let's take a look at how these types of problems can affect search engine rankings .

How Websites Get Penalized For Outdated Content

If you're ranking for a keyword or phrase, Google is going to look at a variety of factors to determine which sites should populate its search engine results pages (SERPs).

The most important of these factors is how relevant your site's content is to the keywords or phrases you're targeting. If your site is featuring content that's no longer relevant, Google will penalize you for it. And if that seems unfair, let us remind you again: If you can't keep up with all the new releases in your niche online, then it's just not going to be possible to constantly roll out fresh content.

Conclusion

If you're continually adding fresh content to your website, you're doing great. But if you're running a blog or other type of content marketing strategy that consists of outdated information, keep in mind that it's impossible to keep up with everything each season.

If your business relies on outdated content for revenue, don't forget about other ranking factors too when determining which sites will rank for a keyword or phrase .

When searching for the keywords or phrases you want to target online, make sure the information is fresh and that there aren't any dead links in your content . This will ensure Google knows exactly what you have to offer.