I was surprised to find an article about the importance of maintaining an up-to-date Web site on Multichannel Merchant. It’s not that the content of the article is particularly surprising; what shocked me is that it was posted yesterday.

Since it is our job to power things like personlized customer experiences, dynamic and tailored offers and contextualized search results, I had assumed that things like live links and up-to-date press release pages were a given!

But the fact that a leading trade publication would publish a story like this in 2007 serves as a stark reminder that ”the basics” need persistent attention.

Where are you putting the effort and attention in your online storefronts? Has the attention on “next-generation” features and functionality distracted from Web fundamentals? Or, does it raise the bar for what’s expected from basic site content?