There is a popular belief that search engine optimization for an old website is easier than for a new site. In this blog we will try to reveal whether this is just a belief or reality.

Because the old website comes with it lot of added advantages, SEOs needn’t work from scratch to build it up and get the bots crawling in. Mostly, a comparatively older website would have more domain references and authority, more incoming links, and a better rapport with the search engines.

However, most of the times the older websites are harder nuts to crack mostly because would be lacking in certain metrics, which is obviously pulling them down the SERPs.

Let us discuss some of the common problems faced by the older websites keeping them off the good books of Google despite the domain age.

• An obsolete content management system

Mostly they would be built on a CMS that the owner itself wouldn’t have a clue about.

• Lack of content.

The site would have established a good rapport with the search engines earlier, but with the competition growing, there would have obviously faced a lack of volume in contents on the site resulting in a slow death.

• A poor link structure.

With bad CMS’s come bad structures, modules, plugs and all that. Forget search engine optimization, some CMS’s doesn’t even have the basics right.

• Use of tables and not-so-seo friendly elements.

They aren’t that bad, and are only “fixable”, but they would be available in plenty on the site that it would take ages to fix them all.

So, fixing an old broken site takes as much as time and effort as a new website. A typical SEO fixing course of actions for an old website would look something like:

1. Fixing the site structure.
2. Getting rid of the broken links.
3. Identifying the most essential pages on Google and leveraging on them.
4. Obviously, keyword research and keyword analysis (with a focus on competition)
5. Stripping off unwanted and obstructive elements from pages.
6. Optimizing the code.
7. Creating a sitemap, with a better linking pattern.
8. Content development with a focus on competition.
9. All the on-site optimization processes.
10. Finally the link building and promotion.

Notwithstanding the fact that the SEO processes sound the same, the time and effort that goes into fixing an old site is larger compared to new sites. May be its right to say that the onsite optimization part has to be worked more for the older websites, compared to newer websites, which may have sound on-site metrics, but a weak offsite presence.

Tags: Keyword analysis, Link Building, search engine optimization, SEO

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 12:33 am and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.