removing archives from blog

[Boris]

Looking through mybloglog statistics I realised that no-one ever browses the monthly archives, only the categories. Likewise google always sends visitors to individual posts or category pages, never the monthly archives.

So I just removed the monthly archives. This (I think) should send more pagerank and better results in the search engines to the remaining pages, as well as possibly removing duplicate content issues.

But this doesn't seem to be common practice, so I am not sure if I'm right.

Any thoughts on the subject?

[shyflower]

I removed mine for much the same reason as I removed my calendar. Although my blog is new, I wondered how many people would, next year, actually give a hoot as to what I posted in July and August of this year. I think the categories direct people to their areas of interest. Archives and calendars are just a waste of real estate.

[ses5909]

I also removed my archives. In wordpress there is a concern with duplicate content when you use archives, calendar, etc.

http://www.seologs.com/wordpress-duplicate-content-cure/

[kingjacob]

I removed my archives for the same reason but I had to put it back inorder to test out the PayPerpost marketplace but once,if ever, the one post I did gets approved my archives are getting the axe,

[samwoodfin]

Well, I've spent the last few days VERY glad that I included the monthly archives on my blog. It's a special circumstance, but remember that blog chain that I mentioned? I post anywhere from two to seven times each day, and without those archives, some of the later participants would've never found the blog chain post. I think that the usefulness of archives depends on both your posting rate and what sort of posts you're making.

[SarahG]

I tend to remove them from my own sites however I must admit if they're on another site I use them as a measure of how long the site's been going (naturally).

As for the dupe content issue. I simply list post title and comment counts on category pages, and split them up with a little PHP into year groupings. This way there's only one page per category and it simply lists all the posts in the category. Much cleaner in my opinion (eg. Stuff by Sarah Photography (http://www.stuffbysarah.net/blog/category/photography/) )

[deronsizemore]

I tend to remove them from my own sites however I must admit if they're on another site I use them as a measure of how long the site's been going (naturally).

As for the dupe content issue. I simply list post title and comment counts on category pages, and split them up with a little PHP into year groupings. This way there's only one page per category and it simply lists all the posts in the category. Much cleaner in my opinion (eg. Stuff by Sarah Photography (http://www.stuffbysarah.net/blog/category/photography/) )

Yeah, me too. I like to see when the blog started by looking at the archives. I've debated removing mine but I don't know what I want to do. I haven't looked at the stats real close, but I figure no one looks at my archives.

[rodaniel]

I guess mine's the minority opinion, but I like having my archives available for continuity's sake. There's not a lot of traffic on those older posts, but as often as possible, I try to "deep link" back to older posts.

[SarahG]

Thing is, the archives are still there, just categorised. I'd rather go in via category and view all the posts in that category in date order instead. Rather than going to say January 2006 and having to bypass 9/10 posts to simply see the one on the subject I wanted.

I would say that if you want to keep your archives on your site then either opt for a drop down list of them (easy with a bit of CSS) or create an archives page that lists them all (easy with a page template). That's what I'd do if I was debating on keeping them.

[rodaniel]

Yeah, I actually do have a drop down menu of my monthly archives already. And you're right, Sarah, I do find that more visitors access my archives via categories rather than directly.