Dating Blog Posts & How Fast Google Picks up on New Pages
-
I had until a few months ago included the original post date of a new blog post on the site. I then removed it and none of my results in Google now include the blog post date, although for some (for articles written about events) Google includes the date of the event where you would usually see the post date. Since I did this, it seems like new blog posts are taking longer to rank on Google, some results are ranking well, and others declined relative to what I would have previously expected.
What's the best thing to be doing? To include a date (considering a lot of my content is not time-relevant) or to keep it as it is now?
The second thing, is I often go through and update my articles with new information and re-post it in my rss feed etc - ie the date becomes new again. How does Google treat this?
Any ideas or comments would be great!
Thanks
-
It is unlikely but for some things possible especially when people are planning trips far in advance (before the info on this years events is available which can sometimes only be a few weeks in advance).
You mean basically copy the content, update it, and put in a redirect?
Thanks
-
How likely is it for users to desire to see the pages on past years?
If not at all, then remove the old pages from your site. Issue solved.
If you feel users may still want to see the old pages, you can canonicalize them to the new page. Google will then not view the old pages as duplicate content.
-
Mm yeah maybe with a link at the top of old ones to say - this applies to 2011, see here for 4th of July 2012?
Then I'd end up with lots of pages with similar competing titles?
It is a difficult one, no?
-
If it was my site, there would likely be a new article each year.
4th of July Celebration!
When: July 4th, 2012
Where: Central Park, NY
Performing Artists will be: Pink, Fleetwood Mac, ....
Tickets are $20
[Insert as many relevant details about the event as possible such as: where to park, how much parking will cost, the time it starts / ends, ?jobs, ?handicap accessibility, etc]
The past year pages would likely 301 redirect to the current year's page. If you felt the need to keep the pages from prior years, then they could possibly canonical to the current year.
-
I'll give you an example and you'll understand what I mean
For instance - I have articles about events which take place every year. Obviously each year there are new details, new elements, new performers etc and the article is totally relevant for the homepage and for the feeds etc again.
I have just been updating and re-posting the pages for the new year (to stop having duplicate pages on the site...)
-
I don't care for the manner in which the articles are being recycled. If the articles are 90% the same and you are just adding a snippet of new info, there is no reason to re-post them at all.
Unless you are posting fresh, new articles then it makes sense that a category page would be crawled faster if your site's navigation is structured with a drill-down style where you click on a category from the home page, then the article.
-
Thanks. It's kind of weird what's happening because my category pages are showing up with the new content faster than the actual article.
I'm not 'manipulating' the date - I'm just not including it. The issue with 'recycling old articles' is that I am updating articles regularly with new information - to add a new article isn't good for the site because it's 90% repetition. Then, when I update them, I re-post them because what's new is important for readers, followers etc, to see. What do you think?
Thanks
-
Dating Blog Posts & How Fast Google Picks up on New Pages
This Q&A post shows as 4 hours old and it is already in Google search results: goo.gl/QHjXb. Google has the ability to pick up new pages in minutes for sites they deem important.
With respect to dates on articles, there are many attempts at manipulation and Google is pretty darn good at detecting them. Some examples:
-
sites which offer a date on their home page or articles that always updates to the current date
-
sites which recycle old articles by updating the date, or republish older articles with a new date
-
sites which do not offer any date for articles in an attempt to hide the age of the information
In brief, I would recommend including the date on all published information. The date provides a critical perspective on information. An example: when I was in school I learned there was 9 planets in our solar system. If I write that "fact" down, the date of the information is important. It seems Pluto has been demoted and there are now only 8 planets in our solar system.
Google looks at some keywords as being more time sensitive and the results of searches are affected by the dates involved.
-
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
List all keywords from a website per page in a table??
Hi all, Very basic question I know but strangely cannot find a solution to it? (its 20:40 on a Fri-night! 😉 ) I am working on a website that has over 100 pages and would like to see all the keywords associated with each page maybe in a table report of some kind? Is this at all possible? Heres an example URL KEYWORDS /index.html Moz, Moz local, London /aboutmoz.html Moz. Moz SEO, London and so on....
Search Behavior | | darrenbooy0 -
Re-Launching Old website with New SEO Friendly Features - What should I track?
Hey Mozers, I was brought on to the team to Optimize the old website to make it more SEO friendly and I was able to get some cool features up. What Analytic Key points should I keep track of? The website launches in 2 weeks and I think Now would be a great time to start gather data bout the old site. I'd like to make sure I keep the website under a microscope to make sure there are as little errors as possible. What am I missing I already have: Page Authority Domain Authority Bounce Rate Time on page Visitors/Sessions Unique Visitors/Sessions
Search Behavior | | rpaiva0 -
Is it better to find a page without the desired content, or not find the page?
Are there any studies that show which is best? If you find my page but not the specific thing you want on it, you may still find something of value. But, if you don't you may associate my site with poor results, which can be worse than finding what you want at a competitor site. IOW maybe it is best to have pages that ONLY and ALWAYS have the content desired. What do the studies suggest? I'm asking because I have content that maybe 1/3 of the time exists and 2/3 of the time doesn't...think 'out of stock' products. So, I'm wondering if I should look into removing the page from being indexed during the 2/3 or should keep it. If I remove it then my concern is whether I lose the history/age factor that I've read Google finds important for credibility. Your thoughts?
Search Behavior | | friendoffood0 -
Google smacked my site and dropped all rankings, can't find out why
I have checked out everything, I mean everything. We have no dupe content, our content is a little thin, but it is ours and accurate enough to help our customers.We follow all SEO guidelines and make sure we de-index any pages with no / little content (like privacy, or faq) All in all, we haven't done any major updates to the sites, and everything was great (page one on almost all kw) but beginning of the month, all kw wiped to the second page, than third, than back to one and now pretty much gone (rank 100-200) I really don't know what to do. We didn't receive a manual action, and the last algo update was nothing big to cause such a drastic change. Meanwhile our competition (multiple sites) are gaining in ranks and nothing happened to them (most of them have even less content and not even SSL) Negative SEO is out of question, I check all links via ahrefs every other day. Any help is appreciated Thanks
Search Behavior | | s-s0 -
When Googling site:mydomain.com what does listing order tell us?
To find all the pages on my site that are indexed by Google I can search using site:mydomain.com and it gives pages of results. But what does the order of results relate to? Is it page rank or strength? My list of pages doesn't appear to be in order of strength. And it's definitely not by age or alphabetical...
Search Behavior | | GregB1230 -
Google Analytics: advanced segment for hour of day
Cioa from 17 Degrees C cloudy Wetherby UK 🙂 In Google analytics I want to report specifically on Blackberry Mobile traffic next to hour if the day. Whilst this customised report I ripped off did the job @ http://bit.ly/hourdays I only resorted to this after battling with advanced segments thinking I could do the same thing. So my question is please how can I get this report http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/hrs-day-examplecopy_zps4f15d4a1.jpg by building it via advanced segments and not ripping off via http://bit.ly/hourdays Grazie tanto,
Search Behavior | | Nightwing
David0 -
Google Location - Taking Away Our National Reach?
Hey, I was just noticing that we achieve #2 ranking on Google for one of our customers for one of their primary keyword phrases. But then I noticed the traffic analytics were not matching what we should expect from that keyword phrase. Then I noticed, in using "Chrome's Incognito Window", that our location was automatically selected for our main geographical city area. I then went and changed that location from Denver, to San Diego & Also Chicago, just to see what would happen, and I noticed we instantly dropped from #2 to #7 when changing our location. I don't know what my question is, but I guess I feel like that is preventing us from achieving the results we need to sell ecommerce products. Is there any info on this or suggestions anyone has on how to tackle this issue? It feels like Google is pulling the rug out from underneath our feet and trying to spread rankings more to localized areas, rather than offering someone the opportunity to capitalize on good rankings for a national audience. I understand why they would do it, and I don't say I disagree. But it just seems to affect our work as SEO's doesn't it? Since we can't be as effective for customers that have a global audience instead of strictly a localized one. I'm curious to see what people have to say about this issue. Thanks!
Search Behavior | | JerDoggMckoy0 -
Is there way to pull a report by date a backlink was aquired?
I'm trying to figure out if the lift in our traffic has anything to do with a new backlink. Is there a way to get an alert anytime a new site links back to us our pull a backlink report by date.
Search Behavior | | M.Seals0