Does Google prefer fresh content?

[zgndcg]

I heard a lot of times that you should post and update content regularly. Now I am reading the Google SEO fundamentals documentation
https://developers.google.com/searc...ge-site-managing-crawl-budget#myths_and_facts
and they clearly state it is not true.

Now is Google lying or is it really just a myth?

If I remember correctly Yandex indeed does prefer older content in the algorithm

 

[bernard]

It's one factor among many.

And I think Google is not being honest here.

I often search for Reddit and forum results and it will show as if it's recent, like within the last few years, but then you click through and it's like 8 years old. That shows me that Google does prioritize current content, even if just means that it's a date that has changed.

What people probably misunderstand is losing rankings over time and then attributing that to content being old, while what is probably happening is the competition looking at your content and trying to beat it, by copying and one-upping you.

In that way, you have to keep getting better, because your competition is getting better.

 

[Ryuzaki]

This is manipulative phrasing by Google. By representing these "myths" in such general ways, they can answer them in general ways and lie by omission about the specific ways in which they DO prefer older content and in ways the DO prefer fresh content.

They have a classifier, I suppose you could call it, called QDF, meaning Queries that Deserve Freshness. There are some keywords where the results need to be more recent and more recently updated. Obvious ones are news topics, review topics, often stuff like top 10 listicles, etc.

Another example, regarding older content, would be that there's obviously a sandbox. So out of one side of their mouth they can argue "we don't have a preference for older content" while out the other side they're saying "we don't trust new content or sites so we don't rank it well until it's older and trusted". Both are true depending on the angle or lens you look at it from.

Here's an example of how this word game can be played:

• The sky blue during the day time hours. True or False?
• It is true that the sky is blue during day time hours.
• The sky is black during the night time hours. True or False?
• It is true that the sky is black during night time hours.

But what about those transitional hours when the sky is pink, orange, and even red? What about the night sky when lightning strikes and it becomes white?

The questions are phrased in such a way to purposefully leave out nuance, and then the answers are weaponized to call specific people conspiracy theorists and to pressure you to disbelieve the evidence of your own eyes, brain, data, and experience.

The fact is, Google does prefer freshness, almost more than it doesn't.

 

[tziahs]

I think @Ryuzaki is right here. Google prefers newer content, but only if it's better than the older content (in some niches, newer content is better because it's based on previous knowledge and more research that was done in recent years).

For instance, let's take an article about slow-release vs. fast-release fertilizers in gardening. 20 years ago, this article would be written based on research done in the 1980s and 1990s, using old technology. A modern article should be based on new research, using modern methodology and technology. Of course, Google will attach a variable to this type of content, and will appreciate the newer one more (IF it's good). This is better for the reader too, who has access to new, better information about gardening.

Even a new article about how the pyramids were built brings so much more information now vs. one written 20 years ago. The research done in this field is enormous.

Also, Google prefers newer content for specific keywords and types of content. Obviously, news and current events all fall under this type of content.

On the other hand, there are some evergreen niches where old and new are irrelevant. For instance, a listicle on various types of cloth.

 

[zgndcg]

Thank you all for the clarification.
I am still not sure what the best practice is here.

Currently I am using the Republish Old Posts Wordpress Plugin
https://wordpress.org/plugins/republish-old-posts/
to republish all my content every 3 month or so. This sets the published und updated date to the current date cycling through all posts.
On my posts I show just the updated date and i use schema for published and updated date which are always the same. It seems to work just fine, because google is always picking up the updated date and showing it in serps.

Now i thought about slightly modifying the plugin to just update the updated date. So that i have the old published date in schema and the new updated date on the page and schema.

Maybe with that i get the benefit of having old published content with always fresh updated date?
What about showing both: old published date and fresh updated date on the page? Does google pick up the newer one?

Oh and I never modify any content. Google does not seem to care.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@zgndcg, This plug-in will do what you’re wanting, updating only the Updated Date and not the Publish Date: Bulk Post Update Date by Atiq Samtia

What’s nice with this one is you can set a date range and randomize the updated dates within it, targeting only certain categories, etc.

I agree that Google’s systems seem to be agnostic about whether or not the content was actually updated. That was my discovery too. As long as the date changes, you get the benefit. I know Google’s people don’t like it and claim Google can come to distrust your dates. I’ve yet to see that happen.

 

[zgndcg]

Thanks. I will try that one out.
A shame it does not seem to have an automatic update every X weeks function.