June 20th, 2010 by Nick

If you ask the average web user if dates on web content such as blogs, articles and news pages is important, then they will more than likely say yes. Granted, for current news related issues, the date it was posted is extremely relevant, as you are dealing with real life events. However, in general blogs, articles or industry news, there is a common misconception that the newer the information, the better and more accurate it is. The fact is that some of the best industry or company articles could be dated last week or last year, yet the quality of content can still be the same.

When we refer to content being strong, this should not be confused with current and modern issues and relevance. Anything time sensitive will of course be affected, but not everything changes. If the article in question is relating to general information, then it cannot be discriminated against because of age. Whilst this might be the truth, convincing both search engines and internet users of this is a tough job, and it unfortunately looks as though we may have to give it up as a bad job.

At searchengineoptimization.co.uk, we have seen some recent movement in companies choosing to post no date at all on any of their article or blog content. The theory behind this is a basic SEO technique, designed to stop good, decent content being penalised for being older than a few months. When we say penalised, for once we do not mean by the search engines – we mean by the human users.

Take a basic example that somebody is searching for a recipe for a simple Victoria sponge. The top two results show links to recipes, one dated five years ago and one dated five days ago. There is no way in the world of knowing which recipe is better without reading them, yet the chances are, the majority of users will choose to click on the newer post, as their minds automatically process more recent as better. The problem with this is that your site may be full of fantastic content, and may be a haven for baking recipes from some of the best bakers around, yet if it fails to get the clicks, then this in turn is going to result in a lower page ranking within SERP’s.

When you look at it like that, you can begin to understand why some companies take the ‘no date’ approach within their search engine optimisation. However, one area which is slightly beyond our control, is blog comments. When a person comments on a blog, this is clearly dated. If you find this is having a negative effect on your search rankings, then you have two options – do not allow blog comments, or monitor them carefully so that old comments are deleted.

There is no denying there is a place for dated posts. However, to maintain your page ranking and company reputation, then managing your older posts can make a vast difference.

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