For a while I’ve been working to surface some of by old content. I think that there are lots of articles of quality that just get lost as they get pushed back in time by new writing. While this article has a bunch of great ideas there are a few that I hate.
So my first advice is this: Don’t display the publication date next to the post’s headline. You can display it just above the comment form if you want to. Or, you can remove it altogether.
One of the things I hate most is no dates on posts, particularly on posts with code attached. Best practices change, dates can let us know if the post might be older and there may be a new way of doing things.
More than that, even opinions can change. Coming to an article written before the release of the iPad or Surface could sound really stupid until you check the date and realize the time context.
I do like the idea of a great archive page, but I must admit that I’m not sure exactly what that looks like. Anyone have a brilliant idea to change up archive pages so they surface content better?
2 responses to “Surfacing Old Content”
This is why I added the meta sidebar to my new (evolving) site design. It includes both the publication date and the last modified date.
Sometimes, a really old post is still relevant and is updated … should the publication date change? I don’t think so. But if a post on code was published in 2009 it’s important to show that yes, it has been updated in the past month.
I’ve thought about adding the last modified date as well, but just haven’t got around to doing it. Sheer laziness.