Marcia - 3:47 am on May 7, 2007 (gmt 0)

Then there is the point that this is -- in the site owner's mind -- better for users.

It most certainly can be and sometimes is better for users. Maybe it's all in my mind that it's better for users, but I'm one user who for the very reason of fresh, changing content uses a portal site [Yahoo.com] as my browser homepage. Then there's yet another site that has changing content [webmasterworld.com] that I like that seems to be doing OK.

Static updating aside, rotating can be a benefit to users, dependiing on how simple the site navigation is. I've wanted to revisit an article or story or film clip at Yahoo, for example, and when I went back it was gone, replaced by something else, and I couldn't find it again. But that's an issue with that site in particular, so there's been no choice but to set up a temporary bookmark folder for what I might want to revisit.

The site is about 5 years old and this rotating content would probably replace some static boilerplate text that has been there for far too long

That's sounds like it's probably about as tasty, stale and crusty as week-old rye bread. And there is a good possibility that there are SEO rewards for freshness in some cases.

Isn't it possible to add fresh stuff regularly, instead of rotating? I personally don't think the intention is to spam, and I'm not being obsequious; but I think that encouraging return visits should be the prime consideration and I have no reason to think that that isn't the case. I think adding rather than rotating is a far better idea, for SEO (freshness being a possibility) and otherwise, as long as your navigation is good enough so people can find the topic again.

Added:

Whoops, memory got jogged!

I seem to remember something, from not too long ago, about rotating text links that didn't exactly leave Google too thrilled and excited. And I've seen a couple of sites that were slammed hard by Yahoo that had footer links that appeared to be sitewide and/or rotating.

[edited by: Marcia at 4:22 am (utc) on May 7, 2007]