How updating a post can influence seo

[Italianseolover]

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.

[Italianseolover]

Thank u alan! I'm again at the first position by adding 20% more text with keywords and writing "Updated at 2014"

[AlanBleiweiss]

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.

[ForForce]

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.