ROT Content: A Problem and a Symptom

If you've got a Web site larger than you can easily wrap your hands around, and you don't have strong Web Governance in place, there's a good chance you have some ROT (Redundant, Outdated, or Trivial) content out there. With too much bad content out there, your site easily loses visitors. Don't worry: We're here for you.

Without precise controls directing what and why content is added to your site, or how often is gets reviewed and updated, it's only a matter of time before "ROT" is being served up to site visitors, especially if you have a huge amount of people publishing content to your site. These precise controls needed are your own Web Policies and Web Standards.

It's pretty obvious that having codified rules about your site will make it "better." But how do you know what types of ROT Policies and Standards you need? One way is by looking at your ROT.

ROT is never a problem on it's own; it is always symptomatic of a greater problem. Chances are, if you start to inventory all of the bad content on your site, you will start to notice patterns. Sure, there might be random misspellings or one-off error pages, but you will also see the same issues over and over again. Stop and really look at these recurring problems.

Let's take a look at an example of what your symptoms might tell you about your missing Web Policies and Standards.

Symptom: Tons of information about past events, still live

Diagnosis: Outdated content rotting on your site might mean you're lacking or not enforcing Web Policies about the quality and relevance of your site. Or you could need strong Web Standards dictating how often different types of content should be reviewed. You might also be missing Editorial Standards about information quality and content ownership, and Information Organization & Access Standards about archiving.

No one really likes to talk about Web Policies and Web Standards. They aren't fun to develop like design wireframes, and they can be easily perceived as constricting. When faced with the prospect of really documenting all of the Policies and Standards around a web property, many Web Managers begin to get really overwhelmed. 

But unless your site is small enough to touch every piece of content regularly, you need precise controls determining what you should do and when, with all of your content. Strong Web Policies and Web Standards make maintaining the integrity of your site a definitive, consistent, and enforceable process. It could even be painless! Of course we make this sound easy, but we've also been doing this for a while.