I started a blog back in 2016 and wrote about 30 articles that year. I didn’t do any SEO, just wrote some content (some of it decent, some not so much). Fast forward to 2024, and the blog is barely getting any clicks, maybe 100 impressions a month.
Now, I want to get back into blogging. My question is, should I start fresh with a new domain, or continue on the same one? I don’t have any penalties on the site that I know of, but it’s pretty inactive at this point.
What would you recommend? Has anyone been in a similar situation and successfully revived an old blog?
Starting fresh can be tempting, but if there’s no penalty on your old domain, why not use it? You can always rebrand or refresh the look of the site while keeping the existing domain authority. I’d also recommend auditing your old content to see which articles are worth keeping and which need to be replaced or updated.
It depends on your goals. If the old blog is still somewhat aligned with what you want to write about, stick with it. You’ll just need to optimize the content and structure. But if you’re planning a completely different direction, a fresh domain might be better. Either way, you’ll need to focus on SEO from the start this time.
Try and revive the old blog first. Google values domain age, and even though your blog’s been inactive, it still has a chance to perform well if you optimize it. Start by doing an SEO audit on your old content, update what’s outdated, and start posting consistently. If it doesn’t work out after a few months, you can always start fresh.
I’ve been in a similar situation. I decided to keep my old domain and just rewrote the articles with better SEO. It takes time to get the blog active again, but Google tends to trust older domains more. Just make sure to update your content and add new, fresh topics regularly.
If your old blog doesn’t have any penalties, I’d say continue with the same domain. It already has some history with Google, and that’s better than starting from scratch. You can always revamp the content, update the design, and work on SEO moving forward. I think it’ll be faster to get results than starting a fresh domain.