Do you think its better to have a published date AND a last updated date ? Does google even look if you updated but left the published date old
-
Do you think its better to have a published date AND a last updated date on Posts ? Does google even look if you updated but left the published date old
I was thinking of adding a "last updated" field to my articles. But is it worth it? or should I just keep it uncluttered and leave only the last published date? I would think that Google would not notice if I updated a last updated meta field since their is a published date field already.
-
I agree about not using css to hide the date. I would not hide anything on a webpage.
I don't know enough about WordPress to tell you how to do that. It probably can be done, but I don't know for sure.
-
Thank you for your response.
If I am going to NOT include a date on some posts - How would I go about doing this?
I use wordpress, and the post date is included in the post meta field by default when a post is published. I do not think that simply using css to hide the post date by "display:none" is the correct way, since that would only hide it from people and not from a google crawler. And I would NOT want to hide the date on ALL posts - Only on some posts. Do you know how I would go about implementing this? Would this require that I make another post template or something?
-
Thank you for your response.
But did they update their posts date ? Or just a p span that said something like Last Updated: 11/02/15
That is where I am confused. I use wordpress so I am trying to understand, that if I do implement a "Last Updated" field, I want to know if I have to physically code it into my single posts template file a certain way so that google can know what it is when it crawls it. The last thing I would want is to code it, but code it a certain way that google will see it as a p span that is part of the body text and not as a special last updated meta field or something like that. I see there are some plugins but I don't want to use a plugin for one meta field.
-
I think that a lot of articles can be written without a date if they are content that is close to being totally evergreen. If you add a date to these articles and that date is a few years old, it can tarnish the opinion of the visitor when there is nothing wrong with the article, and the article might even be among the very best on the web. So, I don't date a lot of my articles for that reason.
I am always upgrading articles, which is different from updating. An update is when you add fresh news or information that is totally new about the subject. An upgrade is when you add another section of evergreen content, add new photos, improve photos, add a video, do a rewrite for clarity, or other type of improvement. I notice that when I upgrade an article it often moves higher in the SERPs. Usually just a few positions if it is on the first page, but if it is deep in the SERPs, it might move up substantially. I've never had anything move from bottom of first page to #1, unless it moved into the featured snippet.
If you have a website with a few thousand articles and your author team is two or three people, if each of them update or upgrade one article every working day, there will be articles on your site that go a long time without an update. Figure 200 working days in a year and a three person team.... if you have a 6000 article website that means it will take ten years to upgrade or update every article - if you do them in a straight rotation.
-
There have been some interesting articles surfacing recently on this with the last study I read (this week) showing that simply updating the date with "Last Updated" and updating the article, refreshed something that was a year old and that had dropped from the first page to the second, and had reached position 1 again.
This is definitely something that anyone with a blog should look to do.
-Andy
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
-
Could decreasing publishing frequency negatively affect our SEO?
Hi Moz Community! I run marketing for a DA 43 website. We've been consistently blogging 4-5 times per week for the past 7 years, and its become ingrained in company culture. Due to limited resources, I want to decrease publishing frequency on the blog and focus on other marketing activities (content promotion, higher value content, link outreach, CRO etc). However, our team is worried that decreasing frequency might negatively affect our SEO (organic search is by far our most important acquisition channel, is the main revenue driver for the whole company). When I look at metrics, a couple of things stand out: 1) a very small % of our blog posts get meaningful organic traffic, 2) the majority of organic traffic that produces customers actually goes through the homepage, not the blog, 3) the vast majority of our blog posts are not earning links as we have not focused much on promotion. Anybody have thoughts on specifically whether decreasing blogging frequency might have an impact? (I know Moz and Hubspot have both done frequency experiments, but those were on high-DA, high-engagement sites where every post had a chance to earn links, etc.) so I'm wanting to isolate the case where publishing frequency is decreased on a site where most posts aren't getting links/much engagement. Thanks!
Content Development | | paulz9990 -
What platform is it better to write my blogs
In a nutshell, I have a website and on the web site I have a rolling blog updated regularly with informative ,interesting and non pushy original material. However . I notice that my website blog has a lower page and domain Authority than my original platform which is on Googles very own platform "blogger" . Should I use Blogger or the website ? or would it be better to promote the website blog on blogger ? or am I over thinking this ?
Content Development | | weddingshoesandaccessories0 -
Google "blog" search
Anyone notice a while ago - the "more" drop down used to include "blogs" which really helped with finding like minded blogs for content marketing. Anyone finding this frustrating and or find a solution? I know they supply us with: http://www.google.com/blogsearch Any other hints? Your pal, Chenzo
Content Development | | Chenzo0 -
Same article published to 3 different client owned sites
My client is publishing their own articles simultaneously on three sites, sites which they own. What can and should they be doing to ensure the get maximum exposure without penalty?
Content Development | | DonnaDuncan0 -
Can I get Google to re-evaluate my comany's website?
For the last few months I've been rewriting website descriptions for the company I work for, trying to comply with the Panda algorithm as best I could. There are about 400 items. Today I am going to begin working on titles and descriptions. Question: Once I'm finished and have run the site through SEOMoz's pro tools, I would like to have Google look at the site _**in toto **_once the changes have been made so that maybe we can procure some decent organic rankings. Can the site be resubmitted, and what is the procedure? Ps. Today I am asking my fellow employees to help me proofread each description for grammar, spelling, accuracy, and keyword placement. I am also asking for suggestions from them.
Content Development | | RScime250 -
Is it better to have your blog open in a separate window?
I've set up a blog on one of my websites, however it doesn't open in a separate window. I know from looking at other blogs that they usually open in separate windows. Is that good practice? Will it make any difference to your SEO performance?
Content Development | | AAttias0 -
Is this a good website design for attracting google and readers
hi, we are looking at re-doing our website and would like to know if this site is a good example of attracting traffic and google. what i mean is, they only have the title of stories and not much content, please take a look and let me know if we can learn any lessons from this site or if they should be adding more content http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
What do you think is the sweet spot for article length?
If you were creating an informational website, how many words on a typical page do you think would be ideal for achieving the best organic traffic and rankings? Why?
Content Development | | ProjectLabs0