Traditional media Web sites are losing market share for both audience and revenue, according to a recent study from the NAA and http://www.borrellassociates.com">Borrell Associates.

The problem is largely related to the lack of content on media sites.

It may surprise some media people to hear that claim. But the reality is that millions of Web publishers are creating billions of pages of content. Much of that content is stored for long shelf life.

Media sites emphasize news and sports, which tend to have a short shelf life. The articles get old and eventually may be deleted. Even if they aren't deleted, it is the nature of news and sports content to have lower readership value over the long run than content with permanent value, such as travel, entertainment, recreation, home, garden, etc.

There are several ways of addressing the problem.

1. Make it a daily habit to archive and tag content in a way that makes it easy to find when it's old.

2. Spend more time on content that has long shelf life and less time on content that doesn't. In other words, spend more time on features and less time on news. That doesn't mean less news should be covered. It means that stories can be shorter and should receive less time-consuming "packaging."

3. For a small media site, dedicate part of a staffer's time each week to building out additional archives. For a larger media site or division, literally hire an online librarian whose expertise in taxonomy will provide the kind of thoroughness and logical structure to online archives that libraries receive.

Media sites have an advantage with quality and disadvantage with quantity of content. One way to reverse the declining market share is for them to be masters of both.