Now you see it, now you don't. The blog post you read in your feed reader an hour ago was deleted by the blogger. But why? It always baffles me when I'm reading a blog and suddenly the content changes (as in it vanishes). There's rarely a good excuse for it, although I'm sure there are some. Before you think twice about a post and opt for that delete button, first consider these five reasons maybe you shouldn't go that route.
- People already know what you said. One of the worst reasons you could delete a blog post is regretting your words after you publish. First of all, if you're going to bother with regret, after publishing is too late. Think before you post. Once it's out there in feed readers, email inboxes, etc., there's no going back. People have seen what you've said anyway, and you do nothing but make yourself look like either a hypocrite or someone with something to hide. If you've changed your mind, edit the post and say so (strikethrough the previous information for example, but don't hide things). If you realize you screwed up, then edit the post and own up to it. Apologize if it's necessary, and just move on. It's far more respectable.
- Nothing on the Web is ever completely deleted. It doesn't matter that you deleted the post from your blog. It's still probably cached in search engines. It was probably in feed readers. It might be in the Internet Archive for all you know. It's very likely in the email box of some subscribers (anyone can subscribe to your feed via email and have a permanent record of your post, whether or not you personally enable email subscriptions). Again, you just look like you have something to hide, and you never know when it could come back and bite you on the ass (all it takes is for one reader to call you out on it for a simple deletion to turn into major drama for you -- not worth it).
- Your blog posts show your progression. It's okay to change your mind over time. We all learn new things and have new experiences that might influence our opinions on an issue. That doesn't mean you should go back and delete old posts sharing old opinions because you're afraid you look hypocritical. Instead take it as an opportunity to connect with your readers. Let them get to know you better by sharing your thought process. What made you change your mind? You'll have more positive influence by justifying what you're telling readers than by simply flip-flopping. Don't understimate people's memories. Just because you delete a post, it doesn't mean your readers don't remember the views you shared.
There are certainly exceptions to the rule. While I've very rarely deleted anything from my blogs, here are a few cases where I did, and why:
- When I merged two writing blogs, there were some overlapping posts. They were literally copy / paste -- things I'd cross-published (like a product launch announcement). So I would delete one while leaving the other. Basically I was just keeping one copy of a post rather than having two copies in the archives.
- When SixFigureWriters.com (a group blog) became AllFreelanceWriting.com (a solo blog at the time), I removed posts from the other writers if they wanted me to. I wasn't going to move on and profit from their posts, and some had their own writing blogs where they could put the content to use. Because it was a team effort for a jointly-run blog rather than my blog where I was hiring writers (like now), it came down to respecting author rights. That said, I don't expect that I'd be a part of that kind of model again (not that it wasn't a lot of fun at the time -- it was).
- There was one post on my PR blog that had to be removed because it attracted an insane amount of "undesirable" traffic. I don't mean attracting people who disagreed with me or anything -- I don't mind that in the slightest. I mean the porn variety. For some reason links to this particular article were all over adult sites, I was getting tons of inappropriate comments to moderate, and plenty of spam to boot. It was at the point where the administrative time needed to manage issues with that one post exceeded administrative time for the rest of the blog as a whole. The post wasn't important in any way -- pretty generic for that blog as it was -- so I opted to kill the piece rather than devote the time to something that was pretty much invisible to my actual readers anyway.
In most cases there are other ways to deal with things you wish you hadn't posted. For example, if you reviewed a product positively and it was updated (and you think it's awful), it's okay to go back and edit your original review with a new opening or an end note saying this is an archived review of an older version and your feelings have changed. If you don't want to do anything to promote a certain person anymore, go through your post and delete or nofollow their links instead of deleting the posts. If you simply have a "Whoops!" moment and you realize you were unintentionally offensive, just edit the post and add a quick apology and / or disclaimer to clarify what you meant.
What about you? Have you seen your favorite bloggers deleting posts? What crosses your mind when you see it happen? What would it take for you to be able to justify deleting your own posts from your blog? When does deleting blog posts cross a line?
I deleted some posts because I felt I could rewrite them. I didn’t think about them being cached in search engines. You made a great point about “thinking” about what you write before you post it. Thanks for the reminder.
I finally realized this two years ago, and I love going back and seeing how my blogging has improved. 🙂
Quite sensible points have been made here. If you delete your posts trying to hide something it definitely might not be helpful as some ppl would have already read it, some might have downloaded it in their offline readers etc. I believe ppl take blog posts very seriously. More than it should be. Its a free way to sharing stuff, if you goof up its OK. Update that post and ppl will know you are learning and open to criticism.
Most imp admit that you delete a post on your blog.
@Rebecca – I’m all for bloggers going back and fixing up old posts. Sometimes if they’re still highly relevant they’ll even change it to a current publish date so it goes out to subscribers and such again. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with tackling a topic more than once. Things can change, or maybe there’s a better approach that can be taken. But deleting is not only frustrating for readers, but you also risk losing any incoming links or search engine traffic tied to the original.
@Shevonne – I like looking back too. It’s interesting to how your style, views, and other post elements have changed over the years. Everyone’s bound to make some changes as we learn and grow.
@Chanda – I agree. If you are going to delete a post because you’re uncomfortable with what you’ve said, at least note that to readers. It makes you look slightly less pathetic to readers who have already seen the original at least.
I agree with the post but just wanted to remark on your porn-attracting post. The exact same thing happened to me with one of my rather generic posts. It got to the point that I deleted it, and then the problem went away. I wonder what keyword or phrase or tag I used to attract their attention? I guess we all have to deal with life’s little random annoyances, don’t we?
It really was the weirdest thing. There was nothing in the post keyword-wise that looked like it would attract pornographic spam bots, especially not when compared to the “filth” in the language around the rest of the blog. Makes me wonder how those ridiculous things work sometimes.
I’ve deleted one post ever, and that’s because it really didn’t fit the particular blog, which was my business blog, and it was garnering the wrong types of comments, which I really didn’t want associated with that blog. I ended up deleting it and writing it over on a different blog, which I hadn’t had when I initially wrote the post, and oddly enough, it’s never gotten a single comment on the new blog.
I have inactivated a post here and there, though, to not accept any comments, but that had to do with posting a short time survey that I didn’t need any more input on.
I was wondering if you could help.
I have recently deleted my blogger blog, and moved it across to wordpress. Purely because I didnt’ want duplicated content for SEO purposes. Was this a bad move? Also, it is taking longer for google to index my new blog, which is now actually part of my site as apposed to previously being a subdomain (blogger).
Any help appreciated.