There has been much speculation about the idea that freshness is today the most relevant value in giving authority to content. To a certain extent, it makes sense, as most queries, updated entries receive the highest percentage of traffic and send stronger signals to Google, as they are recently active, move through social networks, generate comments, and are ultimately searched more.
However, John Muller has commented on his Twitter profile that old content is also relevant to the search engine, although to a lesser extent and depending on the case.
At times, even publications from 2014 are relevant. The date is not the only factor of classification.
The logic of the date in entries
It makes sense that in historical information queries or those that do not depend so much on current events, the value of the date is not a determining factor. Many SEOs have opted to eliminate the date from some of their entries, as they are not perishable content, and prefer not to live the battle of constantly updating their posts.
We know that although it is not the most determining factor, the date plays a relevant role in SERP. Therefore, we see a lot of competition in titles that highlight [2019] and make it especially visible.
The battle for dates has become a circus…
However, and despite Muller’s words, news that require constant updating see the date as a terribly relevant factor, and indeed it should be. The user who was asking put as an example the search:
- “Best Smartphone for product photography.”
It doesn’t seem to make much sense to offer in the results the iPhone 5-S or some review from 2014, given the enormous progress that these gadgets have made in terms of photography. So, are antiquity and date in entries relevant? If so, is it a fundamental factor? Well, it depends.
In informative content that does not change over time, it does not affect much, and it is precisely what Muller referred to. In fact, some old posts can be as powerful and relevant as some more recent ones.
So, dates yes or no?
You should be clear about how your content will move and if you expect it to have long-term competition. If it’s a well-positioned text and you foresee that it won’t change much, eliminate the date if you want, in some of my experiments, that has made it almost not move from the SERP.
Now, if it’s something changing, I wouldn’t rule out the factor of including both the creation date and the update date, as they are two values that the search engine will take into account if your competition is moving habitually. Nevertheless, as with everything, each project is a world and you should test, experiment, and evaluate until you see what works best on your site.