I can only share my own personal experiences. I share this one story constantly as an example of the power of article writing. I wrote an article titled “Protect Your Child With a Password” http://ezinearticles.com/?Protect-Your-Child-With-a-Password&id=209265 I have received feedback on this article for 10 years. The article has appeared on countless websites, some of which no longer exist and continues to be picked up by new site owners.

This article took me under one hour to write. The payoff has been incredible. Talk about multi-year payoff….yea, 10 years is a long time.

Audrey

[Reply]

Likewise, if one starts off with substandard writing, that will be out there for ten years telling readers not to bother with your new and improved content. Quality counts from the first submission.

[Reply]

Ed,

I think this topic is great. Several weeks ago, Chris made a blog post about how our writing style matures as time goes on.

Many of use wrote articles in the beginning that we might not write today.

While I can remove an older article from my own website or even remove it from ezinearticles, I can not remove it from anywhere else it might be posted.

Even today, I’ve had publishers write me and tell me they love my short, one topic articles, yet I’ve had others write me and tell me they wish I had offered more techniques in each article.

Do you believe that those who wrote poor articles 10 years ago, should start over? Do you believe that someone will not read their writings today?

On the very same topic, I mentioned a few days ago, that I do searches on ezinearticles all of the time. If the article I pull up is a good article, I’ll look up the author and scan their other articles. If the article I pull up is “junk” IN MY OPINION, I don’t look up additional articles by that author. Also, next time I look, if I remember that authors name, I’ll choose to bypass their articles. Ten years from now though, I’m not sure I’ll remember the name of the author whose writings I thought were junk.

[Reply]

Audrey, :-)

I’m saying there is no starting over. We should and often do get better. But if we are gung ho marketers shooting to rapidly build web site traffic, we can’t afford to be sloppy, rushed or indifferent about our early content. One can overcome a bad start by publishing better content in more places. By why handicap yourself to save an hour on an early article and lose a hundred web site visitors in the process. You won’t remember the bad content providers a year later, let alone ten. :-) And there is no pleasing everybody.

[Reply]

You can get a lot more out of an article if you avoid specific dates in that article. For example, if you mention something to the effect “during last year’s election President Bush defeated. Senator Kerry…” already you are dating yourself and telling your readers that you wrote the article in 2001. While that may not be “old” per se, in this day and age people measure “newness” in terms of months, not years.

Never be so transparent as to mention current time otherwise your article will age much faster than what you had expected.

[Reply]

Matt,

I don’t think this dating matters much unless it is part of your introduction. summary. If someone has opened your article because the title or intro got their attention, there is a good chance they will not quit reading when they find a reference to a past event, which is only incidental to the point you are making.

I do a lot of commentary on current events. When I go back and read my two and three year old articles, I find they are still interesting and usually relevant. Of course, I am not simply reporting an event but using such to illustrate an observation.

[Reply]

To Matt Keegan & Ed Howe: Actually I think you are both right. My oldest article written in April 05 is about the theatre and the centennial of George Balanchine. It has received more hits (because it’s the oldest?) and emails than any of the others. Some articles outdate themselves, and others remain relevant.

suschar

[Reply]

I agree with what you have written, and it’s time to sharpen my pencil.

[Reply]