Ranking 2019 terms in advance

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Got a question, let's say I currently rank for "best xxxxxxxxx 2019", will being on the first page till next year help maintain that ranking over time?
 
Run a Google search now, you might be late to the party already :smile:

If no one else published content with these 2019 titles yet - you will be at the top first and then you will be moved down by higher authority sites.

Still, no reason to ignore these keywords.

I'd only suggest not putting "2019" in the URL, because time flows by fast and in one year you'd be stuck with semi-obsolete pages you've built a lot of links to. So just roll with "2019" in the title and content, and then update the content and swap it for "2020".
 
Run a Google search now, you might be late to the party already :smile:

If no one else published content with these 2019 titles yet - you will be at the top first and then you will be moved down by higher authority sites.

Still, no reason to ignore these keywords.

I'd only suggest not putting "2019" in the URL, because time flows by fast and in one year you'd be stuck with semi-obsolete pages you've built a lot of links to. So just roll with "2019" in the title and content, and then update the content and swap it for "2020".
For my niche I'm seeing a few keywords that people haven't done, I'm currently ranking #1 for some so maybe I got lucky for a bit lol. But you answered my question about the authority sites pushing them down.

Will be cool to see if I get more traffic or not over the month
 
Authority sites will for sure push them down as they update their own 2018 titles to 2019
 
If no one else published content with these 2019 titles yet - you will be at the top first and then you will be moved down by higher authority sites.
Authority sites will for sure push them down as they update their own 2018 titles to 2019

I agree with these statements but I'd also say to look at the variables too. You do have a chance of staying at the top. Higher authority sites will smash your new site but there's a lot of weight given to Click Through Ratings in the SERPs. If you're positioned at #1 throughout January and establish a high CTR and maintain it while others come in late and are trying to establish their own CTR's, you could stay.

The problem is with what dzianis mentioned, which is that other sites won't be publishing new pages. They'll simply be updating the mention of the year to 2019 throughout the article. These articles will already have backlinks and ranking power. They have as good of a chance, if not greater, of unseating you from #1 as you do for keeping it thanks to a high CTR.

I don't even mess with years in the title tags. I probably should. But the reason I don't is that I feel it forces you to do pretty substantial updates when it comes time to change the year, which is quite the feat if you have a ton of these types of articles. Currently you can just switch the year, but I'm seeing more and more chatter from Google employees themselves saying that they're aware of this scheme. I suspect people simply switching the year in the Title Tag are going to be in for some nice surprises soon, possibly at the end of this year.
 
Currently you can just switch the year, but I'm seeing more and more chatter from Google employees themselves saying that they're aware of this scheme.

Yeah I definitely meant revising the whole article to keep it fresh - new products, industry news mentioned, etc.
 
I'm currently updating 1300 articles with an additional 500k of new text and new title tags etc.

Happy New Year :smile:
 
I don't even mess with years in the title tags. I probably should. But the reason I don't is that I feel it forces you to do pretty substantial updates when it comes time to change the year, which is quite the feat if you have a ton of these types of articles. Currently, you can just switch the year, but I'm seeing more and more chatter from Google employees themselves saying that they're aware of this scheme. I suspect people simply switching the year in the Title Tag are going to be in for some nice surprises soon, possibly at the end of this year.

What exactly do you mean by changing the years in title tag requires substantial updates? I would say it often time requires no updates. If all the products you recommended in 2018 are still the "best" ( which is always subjective ) and your buyer guide section is still relevant, then it does not make sense to make any changes to content.

Changing the year in title tag would simply mean that the article is accurate as of 2019.
 
Outside of the default answer of "whenever my competition does", how early is too early? I'm curious how far ahead of the new year everyone goes about updating?
 
Pretty sure you can put %year% in the page title without having to put it in the wordpress page title e.g. the H1. That way it updates dynamically every year, but if you wanted to put it down as 2019 you'll need to update constantly or write some custom functions I expect.
 
What exactly do you mean by changing the years in title tag requires substantial updates?

In the context of what I was talking about, I'm saying that in the near future Google is likely to clamp down on people simply changing the date in the Title Tag and updating their 'publish date.' They're already making changes in that regard that I've been testing. I've had my date go missing in the SERPs, for instance, for updating the 'publish date' without making substantial changes, then waited and made real changes and then had the date come back.

So what I meant was... one day they're going to clamp down on it and say "well your changes weren't enough so you didn't get a refreshed freshness score. Meaning you won't get a ranking bump which means you likely won't compete against people who go the extra mile in the same SERPs.

Outside of the default answer of "whenever my competition does", how early is too early? I'm curious how far ahead of the new year everyone goes about updating?

If Google re-crawls your site quickly, then I'd say immediately after Christmas. Too soon and you risk losing out on some shopping money. I know there's stuff like Boxing Day in Canada too so it depends on where you live. I wouldn't feel like there's some mad rush to be first though, especially if your page is juicy in terms of links and previous rankings.

Pretty sure you can put %year% in the page title without having to put it in the wordpress page title e.g. the H1. That way it updates dynamically every year, but if you wanted to put it down as 2019 you'll need to update constantly or write some custom functions I expect.

You mean with Yoast installed? That's a good idea, I had never considered that.
 
You mean with Yoast installed? That's a good idea, I had never considered that.

Yeah with Yoast, not sure if other SEO Plugins will let you do it. It's one of the main reasons I'm still using them lol
 
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