Johnston Canyon Banff Canada
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.

Has That Article You Are Reading Has Been Recycled? One Way to Tell Is…

Have you ever been enticed by a headline to read an article — the headline is not necessarily “click bait” but may still be catchy or interesting — only to find that what you are reading seems very familiar…

…as though you have read it before?

Has That Article You Are Reading Has Been Recycled? One Way to Tell Is…

No, déjà vu is not what you are experiencing. Rather, some “bloggers” will take what is called an evergreen article — which is an article whose information is not sensitive to time — and simply release the article again at the simple click of a button.

Publishing the same evergreen article several times without any editing is not unusual — but how can you tell that an article has been recycled?

Simply scroll down to the Comments section of an article and view the dates on which the comments posted. If an article was released today but the comments date back to 2017, the article has obviously been recycled.

Summary

Recycling articles is not necessarily bad or unethical; but that practice is generally the weblog version of a rerun — and its occurrence is especially pervasive this time of the year when many people are enjoying the holiday season.

Although I have written articles with plenty of links to articles which I have already written, I have never written a rehash or a recap or a summary, as I originally wrote in this article on Sunday, January 18, 2015…

…although due to the multiple times The Gate has moved between FlyerTalk and BoardingArea over the years, there are times where I will repost an article with some fresh thoughts so that it is not merely a cut-and-paste job.

I can understand why other “bloggers” post weekly summaries, rehashes and recaps from past articles. I know that it is impossible to keep up with everything everyone writes on their weblogs; and it is easy for readers to miss something. Moreover, new readers can view articles about which they otherwise would not known have existed.

Conversely, there are times where I post an article at one time where you may miss it and not see it. Even I do not always remember everything among the almost 8,900 articles I have written in 14.5 years — so I unfortunately do not always call attention to certain topics about which I have written in the past which are potentially helpful or interesting to you despite my continuously striving to do so.

There are some creative ways to have the topic matter of an article repeated while still keeping it “fresh”: post a new update; relate it to a different topic, include a poll for starters…

…and maybe even create a menu listing past articles — perhaps with a certain structure so that you may check them at your leisure — such as listing all of the articles posted within the past week without posting a rehash article.

Please let me know what you believe would be the best way for me to ensure that you read articles posted at The Gate which may be of interest to you by listing your suggestions in the Comments section below.

Thank you in advance.

Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.

    1. Actually, I was not referring to anyone in particular, Zach H

      …and I agree with you. If I use older content in a new article, I usually indicate as such — along with a link to the original article.

  1. Ben at OMAT (among others) recycles posts fairly often. Given the veritable library of articles he’s posted, it’s not surprising to see some of the more popular/ageless ones get recycled (e.g. recent re-posts covering Hyatt Globalist status and benefits). Like good aircraft designs, the best ones keep getting updated and refreshed over time.

    1. Recycling ageless articles is not a bad idea for those readers who have yet to read the content, Quo Vadis? — especially if the content is valuable or informative.

      My personal library of articles at The Gate is closing in on a count of 8,900; so I can understand that — but I suppose the question is how often should articles be recycled…

  2. We reuse evergreen content a lot. However, done properly, it isn’t a time saver. It takes just as long to go through an old article, update any factual changes, change any broken links, update images etc as it does to write a new article based on a press release. Done properly, everyone benefits.

    What I don’t understand is, as you say, people who simply change the date on an old article so that all the old comments copy across (most of which are now irrelevant) and don’t bother updating the article to reflect any changes in the past year or so. This approach is both lazy and insulting to the audience.

    1. You are so correct about how recycling content is not a time saver when done properly, Raffles; and I completely agree with everything you wrote.

      ___________________

      For readers of The Gate who may not be familiar with Raffles, you can read his articles at Head for Points, which caters to frequent fliers in the United Kingdom — but anyone can benefit from the information which is posted there:

      https://www.headforpoints.com

  3. I’d really like more bloggers to DATE THEIR ARTICLES! Almost none do. And often there are no comments, or, in some cases, comments aren’t even allowed. f someone is really serious about showing articles aren’t recycled then the simple solution is to provide date of original publication and a last updated date, if applicable.

    There are examples practically every day where I read an article containing outdated info.

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