Publication Date, Modification Date - (Proper) Usage and Effect
-
Hi,
First of all: I think apart from QDF results, effects of this are rather small and trumped by such things as the actual content and value a page offered. Nevertheless I got to wondering how the publication date and modification date are used ... effectively and correctly.
Fact: Google displays the publication date on SERPS (if it is given via schema or through the CMS or in any other form). This also applies if you have a date of last modification, for example via schema.org/dateModified - regardless of the extent of changes.
Google only considers the publication date. Google also uses it as an indicator for "freshness". There are quite a few articles on that out there, ex: http://www.kevinmuldoon.com/change-date-article-boost-seo/ and http://www.viperchill.com/new-seo/Q1: In my opinion, faking the publication date is at the very least a darkish grey area which nonetheless seems to still work. Would you agree?
Q2: Would you see it as legitimate to (at some point after thoroughly reworking one page) update the publication date to the date of republication?
Case in point: I have a page with book reviews. These reviews do not really go stale - much like recipes; tastes may change a bit, but essentially it stays the same. I find it somewhat irking to see a 10 year old date there - even if I maybe have restructured and rewritten, maybe even completely redone a review...
But apart from the question of whether to ever "update" your publication date. I started pondering when it was proper to change the modification date (especially as it seems to have little effect apart from serving as date for last changes in headers, caches etc.)?
For example, content changes when
- Manually changing text
- a visitor leaves a comment
- a visitor gives a book/article/page a rating
- a visitor gives a book a rating and this rating is part of another entity's aggregate rating
Q: Which of these events would warrant an update of the last modification? ratings and aggregate ratings typically only change single numbers (vote count and sums/averages); yet there is [legitimate] change and it is utilised in SERPS (review stars).
I am still hesitant.
My answers would be: Changing the publication date might be valid in case of a MAJOR overhaul with new or lots of extra content - when, for example you could publish the same article again in another issue of the same print magazine the article has been published in before; and all of those changes warrant an update of the last modification, at least as it is currently used, i.e. only to show when change has happened with any real influence.
Personally I'd wish for lastModified carrying more weight compared to pubDate AND especially for more google-side checks if actual change has happened. (To be ignored in case of small things like legitimately switching a sentence or correcting a typo; to be penalised if changed when nothing really changes; to honour when real change happens)
Looking forward on your opinions for dating content - and of course on your hints what I am forgetting.
Nico
-
The dating of content has gotten a lot of play of late, in large part because of a post that appeared on the Moz blog: https://moz.com/blog/case-study-can-you-fake-blog-post-freshness-
Despite the dissenting opinions on all sides, this much appears to find consensus: Update your content and the content's date when you have new, valuable information available to provide, and only then.
Otherwise the results are likely to be short-term and not very worthwhile.
RS
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
-
How Removing Zombie pages effect on domain authority?
Hi. Recently I got a project (removing zombie pages here: https://www.alamto.com/ ) As you can see this site has about 20k indexed page on google and it seems I should remove about 6000 useless indexed page. does removing (Noindex) these pages affect on the site metrics? Which metrics would affected? and how? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | jafarfahi1 -
Proper URL Structure. Feedback on Vendors Recommendation
Urgent! We're doing a site redesign and our vendor recommended new url structure as follows: website.com/folder/word1word2word3. Our current structure is website.com/word1-word2 They said that from SEO perspective, it doesn't make a difference if there are dashes between words or not and Google can read either URL. Is that true? I need experts to weigh on the above, as well as SEO implications if we were to implement their suggestion.
On-Page Optimization | | bluejay78780 -
Do Google's mobile friendly updates effect visibility on desktop results pages?
Google say that their quest to make websites more mobile friendly impacts mobile search results - https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/03/continuing-to-make-web-more-mobile.html But I am wondering if having a website that is less mobile friendly effects desktop SERPs as well? We require Adobe Flash as a tool for people to upload their images to us but not on the landing pages we're trying to rank. So our landing pages are not as mobile friendly as they could be (which we're looking to improve) but am worried this is effecting desktop search results even though Google do not claim they do.
On-Page Optimization | | KerryK1 -
Effecting Domain Authority
I've taking an old brochure website and done 61 Pages and 10 Post pages On-page SEO and my Domain Authority is still a '1.' I've used Low Difficulty Keywords and gotten Grade A in On-page Moz reports. We've even keyworded 400 images - Alt text. My competitors have done nothing and they have domain authority at least in the 40s...... Am I doing anything wrong?
On-Page Optimization | | Joseph.Lusso0 -
There are companies who evaluate what effect the penguin update had on a website. Is this possible and is it a good investment ?
I have been hit by the penguin update. I have found companies who for $300 will evaluate my site for potential problems. Is this possible and is it worth the investment
On-Page Optimization | | MobileVet0 -
301 Redirect to mobile site effecting rankings
On my site I redirect users when on a mobile device to be redirected to my mobile version of my site. In the last couple weeks I added that redirect in my htaccess file. I just realized today that I am doing a 301 redirect. In the last few weeks my ranking have gotten lower. I am starting to think that because of the redirect my mobile site is not as optimized as my regular site and therefor is effecting my rankings. My question is how can I redirect my users to my mobile site but not use a 301 AND how do I get google to use my main site content for ranking on the mobile side. I want to go back to getting my search rankings on the mobile side using my main sites content. Can I simply remove the 301 on the redirect? Hope that makes sense.
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
What is the effect of too many internal links on a page?
Hi there! We have been doing a great effort during the last year but our main competitor is still above us in search rankings. Basically, the main differente remains now in the number of internal links, specially in our homepage. We have more than 200 and they only have around 100, so I think we are wasting too much link power among some irrelevant pages. What could be the effect of this?
On-Page Optimization | | bodaclick0