Does Hiding the article´s date in a blog affect SEO?
-
We are running a blog and would like to hide date, as users find the article less interesting if they are dated more than 2 years ago.
Will hiding the article´s date in a blog affecto SEO?
Thanks in advance
-
I can answer that question as I just did an experiment on this which you can review here: http://www.rlmseo.com/blog/seo-impact-blog-post-dates/
The summary is this:
Assuming no displayed date as a baseline, recent dates (not sure exactly how recent - looks like up to 3-12 months but probably depends on industry, etc) will boost traffic significantly.
Compared to the baseline, distant past publish dates will reduce traffic a good bit.
I would recommend this:
- Display update date instead of publish date.
- If a post is still relevant, update it, maybe even add a disclaimer for your users that the post was first published on x date but has been updated and is current.
We've seen dramatic traffic increases with this strategy and it ensures people know how relevant your post is, which is actually more important than the publish date.
-
Hi,
I'm with Philip on doing this selectively. Many users find content hard to digest in the manner it was intended when they have no idea if it was written in 2006 or 2014. If your industry is one where time really doesn't matter or change anything, this may be different. From an SEO point of view, Google still knows when it first crawled a piece of content, so not including a date won't fool Google into believing the content is fresh when it's not.
I agree that creating evergreen content where appropriate is also a good move - articles, case studies, etc. that can be updated where appropriate (and blogged about + linked to to spur re-indexing).
If you see a marked drop off in traffic to or engagement in a post from 2+ years ago that used to be successful for the site, I'd consider re-writing the post with a current slant, linking to the old one from the post and being upfront about the fact that you're refreshing an old article. You can move engagement to the new post. If there really isn't anything new to say about the subject, you can still cover it again "for new readers" and redirect the old post to the new one, canonicalise it or leave it as is if there are no duplicate content issues.
-
I wouldn't recommend hiding the date because you don't want users to know that the content is old. What about when you publish something fresh and someone lands on the page but they can't find a date? They won't know how up to date that information is. I think a lot of people look for dates on blog posts, and rightfully so. They want to see that they're getting good information. You're right, if something is 2+ years old they might look for something more up to date. But you can update old blog posts and re-date them. Add something new to it, make some changes, and update the date.
Imagine an SEO strategy blog that didn't date the posts. You would be doing your visitors a complete disservice by hiding the date. You might have a post all about article directory submissions and they won't see that it's from 2008. That's not enhancing user experience, and people won't be happy with you.
Old content won't always be a bad thing. Read #4, "Burstiness," on this blog post: http://www.seobythesea.com/2014/03/incomplete-google-ranking-signals-1/
It's really interesting and a great read about how older content will sometimes receive the boost in rankings over fresh content.
EDIT: I'd like to add that it's completely okay to hide the date in some circumstances. You might have some sort of evergreen content that truly will stand the test of time and info may not ever, or rarely, change on the topic. For instance, if you were writing a blog post about how to improve your basketball shot. Who cares if the post is from 2006? In that case, hiding the date isn't going to reduce the overall user experience.
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
-
Should I redirect a popular but irrelevant blog post to the home page?
Hi. I'm trying to get my website; www.ciphr.com , to rank for keywords relevant to "HR Software" in the UK. It's a highly competitive industry and we rank ~mid to low on page one for some of our ideal keywords that are highly relevant and high volume. Years ago we took the decision to blog about topics more loosely related to the world of work. One of our blog posts, about plants in the office https://www.ciphr.com/advice/plants-in-the-office/ is popular. It gets decent traffic and consistently builds backlinks to the post without any further effort on our part. The specific page has a PA of 46 and DA of 55 with >500 domains linking to it. This compares to our home page with a PA of 47 and 700 linking domains. It is typically the home page that ranks for our money keywords "HR Software" "HR Systems" in the UK. Because this blog post is so loosely related to our actual business, the traffic it generates is highly unlikely to turn into a customer of ours. I am considering redirecting the blog post to the home page to pass link juice to the home page. The concern I have is that, based on the anchor text and contextual signals from linking pages, Google might then infer that our home page is less relevant for our money keywords and more relevant for "plants". Are my concerns unfounded? What are your thoughts? Should I redirect the blog post to the home page? Another internal page? Keep the blog post live? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | crichardson19922 -
Hiding elements of the page
Hi, Does hiding elements of the page have a negative effect on SEO? The reason I ask is I am using a Wordpress theme however in options if I disable a certain element of the theme that is printed on the page it simply hides it from the user using CSS but it still exists in the code. Could the search engine see this as bad? E.g. like you are trying to keyword stuff by hiding keywords in the page? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | mdeluk1 -
Does no-follow for pages affect site ranking?
Hey, I have a question. On my site, it's divided into the main site and the blog is in a subfolder of same domain. Within the main site (same domain), there are MANY checkout pages and other internal pages we use though all with "NO FOLLOW" on each. Despite it having "NO FOLLOW", will it affect our blog rankings in any way or domain ranking?"
On-Page Optimization | | Mirian0 -
Help! A site has copied my blog!
My site tanked on July 21 and I have been working so hard to bring it back up but nothing is working. Today I looked at "Links to Your Site" on Google Webmasters and I see a copy of my site on another URL. mysite.eemovies.org/mycategory/mypost The domain name is eemovies.org and then all my stuff is wrapped around it and all my content is there! How do I stop this?!
On-Page Optimization | | 2bloggers0 -
Disclaimer in footer - is it affecting my SEO?
For legal reasons I am required to include a 266 word disclaimer in the footer of every page of my credit card comparison site creditcards.com.au. My question is in 2 parts: is this indexable content likely to be hurting my SEO? if so, what is the best way to include the text in the footer but prevent search engines from indexing it? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | OMGPyrmont0 -
How much does punctuation affect on-page SEO?
I have a page on a site that is targeted for "men's custom suits." Using the on-page analysis tool from SEOmoz it gives me an F for "mens custom suits" but an A with the apostrophe. Even though the apostrophe is proper English grammar, does it affect rankings either way?
On-Page Optimization | | cgray010 -
Advice needed form seo point of view
We have a client whose website is http://www.indigenaskincare.com/ There are frames in the site and will they hurm seo efforts. Also, what metrics are missing so that we can give advice to the client.
On-Page Optimization | | seoug_20050 -
What do you think about Alexa SEO audit?
I wonder if somebody had an experience with alexa's audit. What kind of information they provide? Is it completely useless?
On-Page Optimization | | DiamondJewelryEmpire0