If you look on my sidebar you'll see that I've been blogging for over 15 years. If you click through to some of those old posts you'll find photos/Amazon widgets that have disappeared, formatting issues caused by lack of knowledge/experience, typos (wouldn't be surprised if there was one in this post but automatic spellchecking catches a lot of them these days) and other problems. You'll find link-up widgets that no longer work, giveaways that have long since passed and other posts that have definitely outlived their usefulness and whose formatting needs work.
To what extent should I worry about "housekeeping" old posts? Is it worth the hassle to replace non-functioning Amazon widgets with new links/photos? It's not like I'm getting tons of hits on those old posts, but on the other hand, I cringe at the appearance of some of them.
Especially if you are a long-time blogger, do you review, revise or delete old posts, or do you just leave them as you wrote them years ago?
This post is my second entry in the Book Blog Discussion Challenge for 2021.
If blogging was my job I'd go back and make changes. It's not so I don't. I say don't worry about it.
ReplyDeleteI want to add, that I usually read your reviews but it's rare that Blogger allows me to comment. I usually get an error message. Not sure why.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I never have trouble leaving a comment on a blogger blog, but sometimes wordpress gives me trouble.
DeleteI know we have gone through changes on the blog, but I don't have the time or energy to go back and fix old posts to fit the new color scheme. There was that whole thing with photobucket too, and I didn't go back and replace the images. The content is still there to read, and I guess I am ok with that.
ReplyDeleteI have occasionally gone and deleted old posts that are truly useless now (like a spotlight giveaway for a book I never read). When I moved my blog to Wordpress, I also updated some of the old formatting because it was SO ugly that it drove me crazy. But I don't know that it's worth the time, honestly. I wouldn't bother unless it's a post that definitely still gets traffic.
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
I have to agree it would be daunting to go back 12 or 15 years to make corrections or adjustments. I didn't/don't always post my reviews to Goodreads after they appeared on my blog. Now I occasionally have reason to copy the review to Goodreads. If I find errors when I go back to an old post, then I make changes. Otherwise I have no plans to go back to clean up old posts. :-)
ReplyDeleteLife's too short. Honestly, I wouldn't bother, especially if those posts don't draw a lot of traffic. And if your content is still there and readable, that's all the more reason not to spend your time making changes. Spend that time working on new content instead.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my struggles! A few years ago, I went through my archives and deleted the posts that were too ugly or broken to be worth my time. I fixed a few others. I know there are still a ton of broken graphics and links, though. I don’t have time to fix them. I feel guilty, but I just leave them broken.
ReplyDeleteAj @ Read All The Things!
This is something I've also been considering! After going self-hosted, I realized I have almost 900 posts and many older ones have broken links, no featured images and most aren't accessible (no alt-text, for example), so I *do* want to go back through and update everything so it's cohesive, accessible and nothing's broken. It's a lot of work, especially for posts that no one will see, but...I dunno, it's a "worth it" long term project for me!
ReplyDelete