How many edit old posts?

[soon_to_blog]

Do you go back and edit old posts? My wife was kind enough to help edit so I had her look at some posts I published. She had some good suggestions as well as pointing out some dumb mistakes. My blog is pretty new and I only had 3 posts at the time, so it was easy to go back and edit.

I know everything should be polished before publishing, but once I am done with a post I want to get it out there - especially if "my editor" has a lot on her plate. Is going back and editing previous posts bad form?

p.s. Any mistakes you may find in my blog A Path Together (which you are reading now, right ), are my own and I take full ownership of typos, poor sentence structure, etc.

[USCGamecocks]

Your the editor, you make the rules. For when your site gets big and search engines are crawling all over the place and people go directly to certain articles you will want them to be well written. It's hard to keep going forward if you keep looking back though. I would just put your best publishing out there the first time and make sure it's well written and keep going. Making time for new post, editing old post, optimizing your site, building your site and still having time to go backwards sounds like a lot. I know I dramatically over exaggerated but you get what I mean.

By the way, I love you site. Best of luck...

[hermione]

I edit old posts if I think of ways that can improve them. Blog posts aren't just for the day or week they're published; they're there to stay for as long as you want them to stay, and a lot of your readers will be finding them through search engines months or years after they're published.

I've been blogging for about 6 weeks now and currently have 42 posts up. Over this time I have gone back and fixed things here and there, little typos, awkward wording, added or deleted a sentence or two, moved a paragraph around, added pictures, etc. on probably a about 20-25% of the posts.

[rstlne]

I do edit old posts if I see a typo. I try not to make major changes in content because if people have commented on the post, the change could sometimes render their comments irrelevant.

[soon_to_blog]

USCGamecocks - thanks for the compliment. The first one from someone other than my wife!

[purplefdu]

I edit spelling/grammar mistakes from time to time, but since noone reads my blogs its no big deal, lol.

[ThePennyMine]

I go back and edit my old posts as well from time to time, for search engine purposes or simply to keep the content as accurate and as eloquent as I can make it.

[Julie Rains]

Originally Posted by rstlne

I do edit old posts if I see a typo. I try not to make major changes in content because if people have commented on the post, the change could sometimes render their comments irrelevant.

Great point -- I am a purist on changing posts and think it should be avoided. Though I think it is fine to edit using the strikeout key or a note saying that changes have been made. Credibility IMHO is more important than correct spelling and grammar, and standing by your words even if you disagree with them later -- and who hasn't made mistakes, especially with no editor but yourself. And typos are so glaring after you've published a post.

I just finished reading 1984 by George Orwell and feel even stronger about making changes without documenting them; okay I know what you mean about noone noticing for a small blog but I find it disturbing when major publications don't use strikeout keys, retraction notes, etc. as if they can alter what has been said in the past.

[soon_to_blog]

Originally Posted by Julie Rains

Great point -- I am a purist on changing posts and think it should be avoided. Though I think it is fine to edit using the strikeout key or a note saying that changes have been made. Credibility IMHO is more important than correct spelling and grammar, and standing by your words even if you disagree with them later -- and who hasn't made mistakes, especially with no editor but yourself. And typos are so glaring after you've published a post.

I just finished reading 1984 by George Orwell and feel even stronger about making changes without documenting them; okay I know what you mean about noone noticing for a small blog but I find it disturbing when major publications don't use strikeout keys, retraction notes, etc. as if they can alter what has been said in the past.

At first I disagreed with the above, but after thinking about it you are correct (maybe it was the George Orwell reference!). Hopefully I won't be finding as many typos, but I will be using notes from now on if I need to make any changes.

Also, I find that the more I post on other blogs, the greater the importance of not making typos. Comments are the same as posts - they reflect on you.