With the influx of new readers during the last few months, Get Rich Slowly has lost some of the continuity it once had. New commenters don't recognize certain core concepts that are important to my philosophy.

I'm working on an introduction for new readers, but it occured to me that maybe another way to help introduce new people is to post "re-runs", actual re-posts of former articles. For example, I'd really like to feature Don't confuse frugality with depriving yourself. Also, I'd like to rehash some of the "Do what works for your" philosophy.

How do you all feel about that? I can't recall seeing actual re-runs on other sites before. I'm not wanting to make this an ongoing thing, but more of a situational thing. If there's a discusison where a significant portion of the readers are missing a point because they haven't read some background material, it'd be nice to bring that material to the front again.

Comments?

Reposting articles is, in my opinion, a bad idea. You've got searchable archives, so the data's already there. Perhaps a better idea is a "Intro to GRS" or "Guiding Principles" post where you sum up the main things behind your philosophy and then link to (and maybe excerpt) some of those posts. I think repeating things that the long-time readers already have seen will probably be more detrimental to the community.

I think you could accomplish the same thing by paraphrasing the concept and deep linking to the article if the reader chooses to go more in-depth. You could do this for a single post, or as an introductory post to a new series.

I would hesitate to re-publish an entire article for blogging reasons - from what I understand, it isn't good to have duplicate entries. I don't know enough about SEO and possible outcomes to say more, but our friends over at the MBN Forums should be able to help you out on that issue.

You also run the risk of turning people off if you do this too often.

-- just one side of the coin.


Other options:
You could make a make a "start here page" or a "Greatest Hits" page. I have also seen bloggers run a weekly or monthly "archives post" to direct traffic.

Id roll with Greatest Hits as a primer

I don't think reposting is a good idea. Maybe you'll have to get used to repeating yourself a lot though .

I do a weekly "From the Archives" feature (usually on Sunday nights) where I highlight favorite posts from one or two years ago that week. Nobody has every complained, I've gotten a few compliments, and I also usually see increased comment activity on the articles that I highlighted, so I know that people are reading it and clicking through to older articles.

I think Trent does the same thing as Nickel, a 'SD retro' link to a past article.

JD, I don't think it's a bad idea at all. I don't think you should re-post a significant portion of your work (not that you would), but re-writing some of your earlier peices and infusing them with some new content could be a very good idea. It eases your strain, so you can focus on continuing to provide high quality original articles and continually reaffirms your base and welcomes new visitors to the site.

I read an article a while back about a famous author (I can't recall which one) who continually re-wrote virtually all of his work until his death. Are writers expected to get everything perfect the first time? Your writing should continue to evolve as you do and should gain more insight and a deeper meaning as your understanding of the subject matter increases and develops.

When I first started reading a lot of articles online about finance and money, I noticed how quite a few of the articles I read on morningstar.com have a line at the bottom that read something like "A previous version of this article also appeared on [some earlier date]". I didn't feel disappointed a bit, because the content was still fresh and relevant.

I never weighed in on this question, although oddly I thought about it frequently. I like the idea of linking to past articles. The advantage that you have over Trent in this area is your recent comments plug-in. If additional conversations starts about a previous post, it will show up on the front page. Sometimes conversations continue over months or resurrect because of a link, but without the plug-in, many of us don't really know.

As for re-running articles, Sun of Sun's Financial Diary did that recently and I kept thinking he had no new material because I remembered the article on the front page and I missed several new posts. So, I would be very, very careful with that strategy.

Also, I want to take the opportunity to let you know that I read a ton of personal finance blogs (I swear more than anyone else who isn't in the business or has a blog themselves) and I consistently think that you are the best writer of the bunch. Others have more expertise in certain areas and others write more, but I think you have the best writing style. There's also, quite honestly, a formatting thing that you do better than many other blogs which makes the articles easier to read. I guess that relates to the original question in that I would encourage you not to do anything that takes away from the time you take to craft your original posts, but it shows that you take time with them.

Daria

Thank you, Daria. I appreciate the kind words.

Overall, I agree a full repost is a bad idea.

I think the retro idea (like Trent) is good. You can also do something like last year this week recap. Another idea is to expand on your About page -- you can say "If you are new to GRS, I'd recommend the following articles."