Do articles lose search engine relavance with time?

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   ankitharrytomposted 11 years ago

   One of a leading Website WM told me that almost 90% of articles lose their search engine relevance within a year. I wanted to know about the experience of HubPages writers whether this is true or is the case only with some categories of articles like on Tech?

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      sofsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Write hubs on ever green subjects..if you write on technology or current affairs they may not be relevant for long though they get you traffic, either you need to update your hubs and keep them fresh or write on evergreen subject.

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      TheMagicianposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I dunno about that. I'd imagine if that happened, it'd be because more relevant articles or websites buried the older articles. I've got a few articles from almost two years ago that are still on the front page of Google.

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         Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Agreed.  I have some stuff that is ten years old that still gets steady traffic.

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            Hollie Thomasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Does that mean newish could get a lot better?

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               Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Hmm.  Not usually for me.  I don't do any back linking, so it usually takes a while for anything I do to find traction. 
               
               Once in a great while I'll get a Digg or StumbleUpon wave, which I detest because those sites are 99% idiots whose comments are worthless.  They just clog things up; I don't want them.
               
               But other than that, no, older is usually better for me.

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                  Hollie Thomasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Then that's good for me, too. All my hubs are less than six months old. I do very little back linking because I am lazy and get bored easily. Therefore, I'm hoping they just mature and become phenomenal successes.

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                     Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Well, as smart people know, never follow my lead. Even my youngest daughter knew that. When she was just five or six, she told the rest of the family "Don't follow Dad - he has no idea where he's going."  She was correct in her assessment.
                     
                     Smart people do keyword research. I never do. Smart people seek and create back links. I don't.  Smart people almost always make more money than I do, have more traffic and many more followers.
                     
                     Follow the smart people.

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                        Hollie Thomasposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        mmm, not really into trending topics and massive fan base. Guess I'll remain poor.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Quite the reverse.  Most of my articles take a few months to get started, then they just keep on going.  My best performing articles are three years old.
      
      I suspect I know why your "leading Website WM" made that statement, though.  You need backlinks from other sites to retain your search engine ranking.  Most webmasters go out and actively seek backlinks, and some use paid backlinking services.
      
      The trouble is, many of those paid backlinking services create links on dubious blogs.  As Google identifies those blogs and penalizes them, those backlinks no longer count.  So an article which may have hundreds of backlinks when it's new, will have only a handful of links a year later - and search engines will reduce its ranking accordingly.

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         Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I bet that is a reason.
         
         There old be something else though, too. If you are doing very well for a moderately desirable topic, you are a target. Those who want to be at your SERP are going to study whatever you did and try to outdo you.
         
         Let's say I hit a sweet spot, which does happen every now and then. With me, it's always accidental - I did no keyword research and therefore no optimization, but it happened.  The guy I pushed down is going to work harder to push me back down and he will probably use tools I have never even heard of, never mind own. He'll work at it and he will win because I am unlikely to have even noticed where I am, never mind which direction I am moving. 
         
         Even if I did notice or care, I could be outgunned or outsmarted.  People who take this stuff seriously are going to win.

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   rob bell photoposted 11 years ago

   This is good to know, I thought old would be buried by the new.

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      Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I just dug one up that I wrote in December of 2002 that still gets 5,000 unique views every month..  it's showing its age so I don't expect it to last too much longer.
      
      Another one from 2005 is close to 4,000 monthly.. I could list lots of them.  Old does not mean gone.

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   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   
   Paradigmsearch and Pcunix take a stroll...

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      Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Are you saying we are old buzzards?
      
      :-)
      
      Oh, turkeys.  Hmm.. is that better?

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         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I have dozens of other victims in mind, but they have to show up here first.

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            Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I am honored to have been among the earliest victims.

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               paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I also wanted to do Cags, but apparently he went and got himself banned again.

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                  Pcunixposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Yeah, I saw that.  I have been very pure in recent months, though there have been times when I would dearly love to shoot off nuclear weapons..
                  
                  I just grit my teeth, breathe through my nose a few times and then repeat "They don't know any better.  They don't know any better.  THEY DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER!".  Then my wife gently pulls me away from the computer.

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                     paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     

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4. 78

   barryrutherfordposted 11 years ago

   one of my first hubs on the death penalty continues to outrank other hubs with no of visits

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5. 71

   ankitharrytomposted 11 years ago

   Thanks for the info everybody! I asked this because I have written a few articles on Engineering topics which are evergreen topics and fetch me good traffic without even after a year of posting them. So I wanted to check whether this is time limited or will continue to profit me in the the future too.

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