How updating a post can influence seo
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I have just read this great post from moz blog: http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor
But I haven't found nothing about updating post date.
If I edit an old great post (now ranked 2nd after several months in 1st serp position) does it be better if I also update the date of the post in the wordpress post edit page?
Thank you very much and sorry for my poor english.
Bye,
Dario.
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Thank u alan! I'm again at the first position by adding 20% more text with keywords and writing "Updated at 2014"
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ForForce is spot on.
Trust is a critical factor. Instead of artificially manipulating the post date, be sure the "date last updated" is accurately working.
And if you DO make a value-add update to a post, add a sentence to the top of the post like "Update: ________" and maybe even put "Updated" with the date right in the page Title or meta Description.
Anything else would be playing with fire.
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For google rankings it's going to depend more on the update than the post-date.
For example, if you have a 10 paragraph post, and you add 1 paragraph and change the post date, I doubt you would regain the 1st position.
If you add 5 new paragraphs that add more detail or broader coverage to the subject and change the post date, you have a pretty good chance.
In both cases, you are not likely to get any kind of penalty for changing the post date.
On the other hand.... If you make a habit of REGULARLY updating post dates without providing any new value to the reader, then google will see this RECURRING behavior as spammy, and you'd probably end up on page 2 instead of position 2.
For the best ranking results I'd suggest you aim to update the article with a minimum of 20% new valuable content and update the post date. Possibly stick the word 'Updated: ' before the original title of the post as well.
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