Snook: Don't Bring Me Down
Jonathan Snook recently posted an article entitled Don't Bring Me Down which brings up discussion points related to properly archiving content between re-designs. While I would agree with him for the most part, I appreciated a comment by Bryan Veloso where he states:
[...] People blog differently, people feel different magnitudes of attachment to either blog posts or search engine rankings. Me? I don't give a crap about where I'm placed. I don't blog to get ranked, I blog because I happen to like doing it. If my ranking goes down because I nuke my posts, hypothetically, then I'll go boo-hoo for a day, but that's it. (via)
I have always been an advocate for businesses building websites to be sure to keep their content properly linked up, even if things are shifted around. Moving content isn't the main issue at hand for them, it's about putting the proper redirects in place so that their content is not lost. On personal sites, however, much of that can change.
My blog has been a personal playground for me in many aspects. When I reflect back on the things I wrote when I initially started this blog, I fail to see any value in what I wrote then. At that point I was just writing to fill the blog up with content, then I began to search for my voice, my reason for blogging at all. So in that aspect, I see nothing wrong with purging older posts that contain very little (or no) value. I may end up with some broken links. I may end up with some broken bookmarks (doubtful with some of the posts, he). At the end of the day, it isn't entirely about the search engines. It's about personal values, personal and professional goals, and quality content. There is a difference between a personal designer blog and a business in it to profit from one avenue or another (advertising, services, products, etc).
One thing that I come across often through reading books: broken links to examples on the web. Many times designers or developers will point to their colleague's blogs or other sites as examples of what they are trying to show. It can be frustrating trying to maintain offline bookmarks such as these, but I do think it's important to weight it in when you are thinking about removing content all together.
Not every piece of content will be meant to be sticky. There are some posts, like this one, that are opinion pieces or responses to things taking place elsewhere on the web. In fact, this message will self destruct in 10 days. Will it be missed?