Why Should You Avoid Publishing Topical Content? |

Ryan Biddulph March 10, 2025 blogging tips 🕑 4 minutes read

Cusco, Peru

I have learned one clear blogging lesson as a 16 year veteran.

There is nothing new under the sun. But if you think that there is something new under the sun you will *eventually* need to delete that content or update it to make it relevant.

Deleting or updating content down the road means working a bunch more down the road. Working a bunch more down the road makes zero sense. Why not publish evergreen content in the first place to save:

time?
work?

Does it make sense to publish topical content now? Nope. Consider this sneaky form of self-sabotage. You just know that by tomorrow, next week, next month or next year that topical content becomes irrelevant. What happens then? Either delete topical content, update it thoroughly or become a little more irrelevant as a blogger, at least according to the blog post itself.

Do readers trust irrelevant bloggers?

Not really.

Publishing one inaccurate post does not make one an irrelevant blogger.

But readers will perceive you to be a little less than credible based on your dated, irrelevant content.

Practical Example

I published a *page* (NOT a blog post) months ago.

I published it as a page because:

I tackled a topical subject
I knew that no one would see the page a few days after the publish date

I discussed a temporary Google algorithm change at the time. I also stressed why I do not hunger for Google traffic based on the policy shift subtly projected by the Big G.

I should probably delete the page. I will delete the page.

Readers who scanned the page now would say:

“What the hell is this guy talking about?”

The title, blog page content and overall delivery is currently dead, buried and fully not relevant. Old news. The subject no longer exists.

That is not a good thing.

The page flashed a shelf life of 1-2 months as far as relevance. Google changed its policy as quickly as I wrote and published the page.

I created more work for myself in publishing the topical content; I knew that I had to delete it at a later date. This made no sense. But I still made the irrational decision.

Imagine if heavily:

updating
editing
rewriting

the post seemed possible.

I would need to do all that work AGAIN before the post became:

relevant
trustworthy
credible

Does that make sense from a mindset of scale?

No.

Do the work once.

Let that asset work for you, seemingly forever; or until you stop paying for your domain and hosting.

This is wise.

This is smart.

Publish evergreen content. Let that content work for you like an employee. Be free from time and location. Publish timeless assets. Do the work once. Let that content do the work for you day after day, year after year, decade after decade.

Now THAT is smart, isn’t it?

What Is the Temptation?

The ego tempts you to cover topical content for:

popularity
profitability

potential.

But what it popular and profitable today loses popularity and profitability tomorrow.

Where does that leave you?

First off, the topical content becomes irrelevant. Never mind all the extra work necessary to find, delete or possibly update topical content to make it trustworthy. But since it is topical and not evergreen, you will need to find it and update it again, and again, and again, down the road. Consider it the burden that keeps on taking while evergreen content is the gift that keeps on giving.

After I publish this blog post it is good forever. Or it is good as long as I pay the domain and hosting bills here. Evergreen content works for you indefinitely because it is accurate for all time, in essence. You create it. It works for you. Evergreen content is a passive traffic and passive business generating asset.

However, publishing evergreen content requires some mental effort because thinking timelessly in a world of time is no easy task, at first, at least.

Think Timelessly

As long as humans exist, topical content needs updating while evergreen content is relevant seemingly forever.

Knowing this timeless truth, I wrote and published the post from this perspective.

Case closed.

Job done.

I published based on a fundamental not a concept that changes with the wind.

Embody this idea to do increasingly less work down the road.

Embody this concept to avoid doing more work down the road.

I update blog posts every 6-12 months to spot rare topical content. Nobody’s perfect because the world is a place of imperfection. Yet blogging in the spirit of evergreen keeps updating sessions short, sweet and largely irrelevant because evergreen content passes the test of time.