Q: On my blog I have re-posted some older articles as I find they get lost in the Older Posts and your new readers haven't had the chance to read them. Is there an etiquette on re-using your older posts on a blog? Is it considered tacky blogging?
A: I'm not sure about the official verdict on this one, but I do know that posting duplicate content doesn't help you from an SEO standpoint. I also think it's potentially annoying to your regulars who've already read the post. If you wanted to reuse an article that you'd posted on a different blog, that'd be OK (but in the eyes of Google, it's still duplicate content, so I wouldn't do it all the time).
Here's what I'd suggest instead… You could include your favorite posts somewhere in your blogroll so that new readers can check them out on their own (feel free to rotate as often as you see fit). You could also revisit an old topic and include a link to the original post for more information. For instance, "blog etiquette seems to be a hot topic lately, and I've thought of a few more points I'd like to add since my last post…" Or at the bottom of the post, you could write "see these related posts."
Another option, if you know you're getting a bunch of new traffic from a popular blog or website is to do a round-up of posts. For example, "Welcome to all those readers who are coming from The Urban Muse. Here are a few posts that might be of interest…" Popular bloggers including Penelope Trunk and CatalystBlogger often use this method.
Any additional thoughts on the topic of reusing old content?