So we have a blog for our open source company/project, but I was thinking of sharing the updates here as well. Does it make sense? Is there anyone else doing the same thing?
Hey Arik, that would definitely make sense. A number of organizations (and individuals) follow a system which I've sometimes seen referred to as "POSSE" — Post on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. It's very common to share the first version of a post on your personal website or company blog, and then cross-post it here. Doing so exposes you to the DEV audience, allows you to build a following over time, and provides a forum to engage in the comments.
We support canonical URLs, which can be set right through the Front Matter in each post. We also have an RSS tool which can help make importing posts a bit easier.
Finally, we also support organization accounts which allows you to invite collaborators, all post under the company branding, add a CTA next to the article, etc.
This is great! I was a bit lazy early on, and we use Medium for our blog 😔But we're going to fix this mistake soon (hopefully) and migrate our blog either to Ghost or just put it as part of our website. I might do the later, and direct people to a DEV mirror of the post, if they want to discuss. 👌
I saw the one of the posts in your org and I wasn't sure how to set this up, so you answered that questions as well. :-)
We (specially myself & @rauchy
) are big fans of DEV here at Redash, so it's awesome that the love is mutual 😻I have to admit that I found DEV a bit late, but find it super interesting.
Hello Arik, thank you for starting this discussion. Why did you put a sad face about blogging on Medium? I would be curious to hear your opinion about which are the benefits of Dev over Medium.
I'm in the process of making the same choice (Dev or Medium) for starting the company blog and I'm really undecided.
Thanks for clarification. And I'd like to clarify one more thing - crossposting is okay as long as it's crosspost from my personal blog and not other blogging/dev platform? Also, what do you mean by crossposting - copying and reformatting text or throwing a link with a thumbnail?
Cross-posting an entire article is okay, even if it's from another blogging platform (IE Medium). Make sure to make use of the canonical_url feature to ensure there's no SEO impact.
We do prefer that people share the entire article, rather than only providing a "preview" and then linking to a hosted article elsewhere.
That's what I've started to do since I started blogging and writing again last year. I think people should always own their own platform and post their content there first and foremost.
Far too many people have found they relinquished control of their content to Facebook etc. and a lot of their work is essentially being held hostage on those platforms now. If they should ever go under, it's all gone too.
Syndicating to the likes of DEV and Medium is a great middle ground in that you can reach a wider audience as Peter says and get involved in discussions with the excellent community on here. Best of both worlds.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Redash after you give it a try. Feel free to subscribe on our hosted platform. Send me your account name after signing up and I will mark your account as free. (my email is arik at redash io)
I'm considering this approach, but I'm worried about SEO. How do I let Google know this isn't duplicate content? I could be stealing articles from anyone's blog.
Hey Arik, that would definitely make sense. A number of organizations (and individuals) follow a system which I've sometimes seen referred to as "POSSE" — Post on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. It's very common to share the first version of a post on your personal website or company blog, and then cross-post it here. Doing so exposes you to the DEV audience, allows you to build a following over time, and provides a forum to engage in the comments.
We support canonical URLs, which can be set right through the Front Matter in each post. We also have an RSS tool which can help make importing posts a bit easier.
Finally, we also support organization accounts which allows you to invite collaborators, all post under the company branding, add a CTA next to the article, etc.
PS — we're big fans and users of Redash :)
This is great! I was a bit lazy early on, and we use Medium for our blog 😔But we're going to fix this mistake soon (hopefully) and migrate our blog either to Ghost or just put it as part of our website. I might do the later, and direct people to a DEV mirror of the post, if they want to discuss. 👌
I saw the one of the posts in your org and I wasn't sure how to set this up, so you answered that questions as well. :-)
We (specially myself & @rauchy ) are big fans of DEV here at Redash, so it's awesome that the love is mutual 😻I have to admit that I found DEV a bit late, but find it super interesting.
Hello Arik, thank you for starting this discussion. Why did you put a sad face about blogging on Medium? I would be curious to hear your opinion about which are the benefits of Dev over Medium.
I'm in the process of making the same choice (Dev or Medium) for starting the company blog and I'm really undecided.
Thank you
Sounds wonderful :)
Please feel free to ping me (peter -at- dev.to) if you run into any issues or have questions as you get going!
Thanks for clarification. And I'd like to clarify one more thing - crossposting is okay as long as it's crosspost from my personal blog and not other blogging/dev platform? Also, what do you mean by crossposting - copying and reformatting text or throwing a link with a thumbnail?
Cross-posting an entire article is okay, even if it's from another blogging platform (IE Medium). Make sure to make use of the
canonical_urlfeature to ensure there's no SEO impact.We do prefer that people share the entire article, rather than only providing a "preview" and then linking to a hosted article elsewhere.
Hope that helps!
That's what I've started to do since I started blogging and writing again last year. I think people should always own their own platform and post their content there first and foremost.
Far too many people have found they relinquished control of their content to Facebook etc. and a lot of their work is essentially being held hostage on those platforms now. If they should ever go under, it's all gone too.
Syndicating to the likes of DEV and Medium is a great middle ground in that you can reach a wider audience as Peter says and get involved in discussions with the excellent community on here. Best of both worlds.
It does sound like best of both worlds, and I'm glad it's an encouraged behavior.
Btw, I find your blog super interesting. And looks like we share the love for SQL and business lessons from Basecamp :-)
Glad you enjoyed the blog. Without SQL and pilfering ideas from Jason Fried and DHH I wouldn't have had a career!
Redash looks really interesting by the way, I'll definitely be checking it out more.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Redash after you give it a try. Feel free to subscribe on our hosted platform. Send me your account name after signing up and I will mark your account as free. (my email is arik at redash io)
I'm considering this approach, but I'm worried about SEO. How do I let Google know this isn't duplicate content? I could be stealing articles from anyone's blog.
Ping @peter
When you post there is an option to fill a field "canonical" where you just paste the URL to the original content on your site.
Dev.to will generate the corresponding tag on the HTML, indicating to google it is a repost from somewhere else, not a duplicate.
Neat, thanks!