Lately I’ve been getting quite a few notifications each day about people interacting with some of my older blog content. In fancy internet parlance, this is a sign of “evergreen content”, material that’s still good long after it’s published.
That’s great, but it makes me curious how it happens. New content is easy enough to find, but clearly people also stumble across older content. But how?
WordPress stats can give some indication, but the majority of people arriving on my blog are coming from WordPress, and the stats give no further detail on that. So I’m curious – how do people find these posts?
One possibility is WordPress recommendations. Do you ever noticed that in the WordPress Reader it will show you some recommended posts mixed in with the posts from blogs you’re following? WordPress says that it decides these…
“based on what you have recently liked or commented on, and by using collaborative filtering (if you and another user both liked a post, then we are more likely to recommend to posts the other user liked to you).”
There’s also the “More on WordPress.com” section that appears below the comments if you’re reading a post in the WP Reader. WordPress says this is “mostly popular content on WordPress.com that is similar to the current post.”
Of course WordPress isn’t going to disclose exactly what goes into those algorithms, but it does offer a few hints (text in italics is quoted from the above-linked WP page):
- The title, content, tags, and categories of posts. – Nothing too surprising here, but it’s a reminder that these things matter for your post’s visibility. I’ve always used tags, but only recently did it cross my mind that it was worth using categories as well.
- Total number of likes and comments. – This seems like a no-brainer.
- Who has liked and commented on a post. – From what I can ascertain, this isn’t about getting likes/comments from the who’s who influencer types of the blogging world. Rather, if Jane interacts with my blog and John and Jane interact with each other, WP is more likely to put one of my posts in front of John’s face because of our mutual connection to Jane.
- Total number of followers. – Size matters to WP. No surprise there.
- Who has followed a site. – I think this is also along the lines of my John & Jane example.
- How recently a post was published. – This doesn’t help me on the question of how evergreen content bubbles up to the surface.
- How often or recently a site has posted. – In a way this makes sense, because they don’t want to serve up content from a blogger who’s been radio silence for six months, but I hope they’re not penalizing bloggers who don’t publish ultra-frequently.
- The content of what you have liked and commented on. – I suppose this means that if people have been interacting with other mental health content, WP is more likely to suggest a post from my blog that consists mostly of mental health content.
- Whether posts have links, images, or videos. – I’m a little bit surprised by this one. Links, images, and videos are useful for SEO purposes, but I wouldn’t have thought WP would pay much attention for recommending posts.
I still don’t really know how people are finding my older posts. Maybe it’s tag searches or other searches in the WP Reader, as these same algorithms affect Reader search results. Interesting information, though, and it probably does give some explanation for why I get a bizarrely large proportion of new followers who seem entirely random and as far as I can tell have never even looked at my blog.
Anyway, to bring it back to evergreen posts, which I didn’t really end up talking about anyway, I say write what you want and when you want to, and keep in mind that these WordPress algorithms may be just as buggy as all the other weird stuff that goes wrong with WordPress on a somewhat regular basis.
Happy blogging!
Have you checked out my book Psych Meds Made Simple? It’s available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
Interesting post Ashley. Today I was looking at my stats and had one search that come from google, lol. I actually got quite excited as I don’t get anything from google. I suppose it’s early days yet, I need to give it time 😊👍
Yeah, it took quite a while before I started getting traffic from search engines.
Re: catagories and tags: a word of warning: as I understand it, if you put fifteen or more of these on a post, WordPress will assume it’s a spam post and not promote it in its reader.
Yes, I’ve seen that too.
Wow, I had no idea. I should stop using so many tags!
Woo hoo!! Happy blogging to you as well!!
I never use the WP reader. I just go through my emails, usually at the start of my day. You seem to have a much greater understanding of this stuff than I do! It’s one of those topics that isn’t going to merge with my brain, sort of like social studies or physical sciences.
I follow a ton of blogs, so I’d end up with way too full of an inbox to do it by email.
I appreciate your posts about the logistics of blogging. They are definitely helpful!
And I didn’t mean to post this as a reply! Sorry!
🙂
Oh, no worries!! 🙂
But I love the evergreen analogy!!
Not mine to take credit for, but yeah, it’s a good one.
I find that I have a few older posts still getting attention! Especially with new pins, designs added!
– Nyxie
http://www.nyxiesnook.com
Yeah new pins can make a big difference.
This is really interesting!
I like the term Evergreen blogging.
Me too 🙂
I have liked older posts in the past month, or two on blogs, which I would read from recommendations it gave after reading a newer, or the latest post. I think I have read one of your much older posts too, when I was looking at your guinea pigs.
Ok good to know,
This is very interesting – as I’m very into looking at my stats and trying to understand what drives them. I consistently get views on old posts, but for me, I think it’s because I post book reviews so they aren’t dated the way other types of posts are. I’ve noticed how the suggested blogs are tuned into what I’m interested in. Although I don’t like that when I’m on social media,or online shopping, I have found interesting blogs that way.Great post.
Thanks! I agree, on WordPress relevant suggestions are good, but on social media and online shopping it just gets a bit creepy.
Definitely.
Your evergreen analogy is a good one. I’ve always wondered how people find my older posts outside of a search engine like Google.
I guess what matters most is that they’re finding them 🙂
You’re right about weird stuff going haywire with WP regularly! I’d never heard the term ‘evergreen posts’ before, I like it! It does make me sad sometimes to think posts that are so good get lost and forgotten about, so it’s nice others can still randomly find them sometimes. xx
Yeah for sure.