New content on existing URL, what to do with old content

Ok, simple question, I am upgrading a White Hat money site.

domain.com/url/ has content which needs replacing, I am happy to replace appropriate content.

Can I use my existing content (from /url/) on new page, lets say domain.com/new-url/

Thanks

yes, but spin it a bit first!

SEO Sage said:

yes, but spin it a bit first!

Click to expand...

Thanks, I don't spin. Need to keep content writers in business. But thanks for your reply!

Well if you're needing to keep your writers at work then don't spin it. It likely wouldn't provide any positive change as the previous content would have been cached. I'd think Google could identify that it was simply moved as opposed to replaced, or duplicated once it was re-indexed.

replacing because old content wasn't unique and hurted your rankings? just delete and replace

not the case? just add it on another page.

Ipaidforthisname,
If you are simply moving content I don't see what the issue is with that. Are you saying you will have two pages out there with the same content? If that is the case, then the new page probably won't get indexed.
If you are just moving content from an old page to a new page, you could also set up a redirect to try and capture any search or referral traffic that was coming into the old page.

Hope that helps,

Shawn

He's going to replace the old content regardless by the sounds of it. Just wants to know if it would be beneficial in trying to re-index the cached content under a new url.

Quite frankly, I think you'll lose the SERP that you were previously ranking for after it's re-indexed, and the new content wouldn't have any benefit of having replaced it in the first place.

Thank you all for replies.

To avoid confusion, the old content wasn't spun or anything and domain.com/url wasn't SEO'd

I am relaunching the website hence making changes and spending $$ on content which converts, but it would be a shame to bin old content (which was new at the time).

What I proposed that I create domain.com/new_url/ and paste old content there? But it's clear that it won't be a good move.

Hope this helps.

Basically, it'll be pointless to pay for labour to get it backlinked if it didn't convert enough in the first place. If you're sure that the newer content\design will be more profitable. Hold off on any further investment in the "old ways" unless you crash and burn.

If you don't feel this is true:
It won't hurt you to to use the old content since it would be different\"unique" despite being cached because it's your domain. You just won't get the same rankings without page redirects, and if you were to do that, you'd probably be better of just changing your navigation hyperlinks in the first place and leaving the old content intact in hopes that you'll get a click through.

You'll still be able to rank your old content in a new directory, after indexing it'll realize that it's not duplicated, just moved. Include it in a sitemap to get indexed, but it won't have the backlinks to get it noticed.