What to do when intranet news becomes old news

When does “news” on your intranet become “old news”? SWOOP Analytics’ benchmarking of SharePoint intranet data found it’s about a week before news starts to decay. So, what do you do with this “old” news?

We reached out to the world’s premier intranet thought leaders and specialists to ask their advice on how to keep intranet news pages relevant, and when to archive “old” news.

Most suggest archiving old news after about 12 months, otherwise it will keep appearing in searches, and chances are, it will contain outdated information. The most important thing to remember about searchable old news is to ensure it’s updated if information has changed, or mark it as being old/outdated news.

Jamie Stokes, Director, Digital Communications, Cox Enterprises.

Jamie Stokes, Director, Digital Communications at Cox Enterprises, America’s largest private broadband company, said news articles older than a year are moved to a non-searchable SharePoint folder.

“This removed them from the employee search experience, but gave content owners the ability to refer back to them as needed,” Jamie said.

“We chose the one-year mark, as content cycles tend to be cyclical, and we didn’t want an article from the same series or event to appear in search twice (from this year and the previous year).

“This process allowed us to remove thousands of old articles and kept our search experience ‘clean’.” 

Chris Harrer, Assistant Vice President, Internal Communications – Digital, Comcast.

Chris Harrer, Assistant Vice President, Internal Communications – Digital, at US-based technology and entertainment giant Comcast, waits 13 months to archive old news, waiting that extra month for the same reason Cox Enterprises chooses to archive within 12 months.

“The reason for the odd month is that with benefits and bonus news, those items are usually an annual occurrence, and that allows for the extra time to either reuse a benefits article or reference it prior to it archiving,” Chris said.

“Then once that season is over its archived and taken out of search, so the most recent article is the only one that appears in search. But most articles should be about a year for reference.”

Suzie Robinson, specialist, ClearBox Consulting.

Suzie Robinson, a specialist at UK-based intranet consultancy ClearBox Consulting, says there’s no harm with the popularity of a news page dwindling after a week, as long as it’s easy to find in search results.

“There’s value in having an archive of old news on the intranet to show activity over time, to show new people a history to the business, and to highlight culturally important topics,” she said.

“However, it’s not worth hanging onto things that are just not relevant.”

Suzie also suggested archiving news after about a year, unless it relates to a topic that has broader longevity, for example, when there are new product launches.

“If the organisation is going through a period of change, then articles could stay active longer, or conversely if the same topic is being raised multiple times (COVID during 2020, for example) then archiving old news sooner also makes sense,” she said.

Search analytics will help show what topics are still relevant, and where old news is being presented too high in results. Performing searches to test popular search terms will also show where there’s clutter, allowing intranet managers to remove anything that is irrelevant.

Suzie said SWOOP Analytics’ finding that news starts to decay after a week is a reminder of the need to repeat messages.

“Saying something once doesn’t mean that it has landed, or landed well, with the audience and news isn’t necessarily old just because it drops off the home page,” she said.

“Important messages should be repeated, or remain on the home page of an intranet, until they are no longer relevant. Links to intranet articles from Viva Engage, digital signage, or something similar will help extend the longevity of the article.”

Jonas Bladt Hansen, co-founder, Next Level IC.

Jonas Bladt Hansen, co-founder of Danish internal communications consultancy Next Level IC, also suggests extending the reach of news or articles by sharing them in newsletters, or across other platforms.

“Instead of solely posting on the intranet and expecting traffic, explore other avenues to promote your content,” Jonas said.

“Drawing inspiration from marketing and sales teams, who excel at driving traffic with engaging content, can be beneficial.”

Jonathan Phillips, co-founder, Lithos Partners.

Jonathan Phillips, co-founder of Lithos Partners, a UK-based digital communication and collaboration consultancy, agrees about a year is the right time to archive news. He also suggests labelling outdated news so people know the information is old.

“Old news is rarely helpful and often misleading,” Jonathan said.

“We recommend labelling older news stories – like you see on some news websites – so readers can see they’re out of date and may have been superseded.”

He says robust content governance is critical.

“Governance has a huge impact on user experience,” Jonathan said.

“Search works brilliantly well when your intranet only has one page, and declines as we add more content. Content life cycling – and particularly content archiving – is critical to the overall intranet health.”

Susan Hanley, Microsoft SharePoint and M365 specialist.

Microsoft SharePoint and M365 specialist Susan Hanley recommends archiving old news somewhere between six and twelve months, unless the content is no longer correct. If it’s outdated content, Susan recommends deleting it so it isn’t accidentally discovered via search.

“As your intranet ‘matures’, it seems reasonable to ask news authors to update an archive date (a default that they can override) so that we can automate the process,” she said.

“It’s important to make sure that communicators don’t use news posts to replace durable content pages because then there may be a need to retain news articles longer.

“If the content is durable, it should be on a durable page in an appropriate location. The news post should help advertise or introduce or amplify the durable content – but it shouldn’t be the only place durable information is posted.

“The news article should go away, but the durable content should remain – and be updated as needed.”