Wordpress: No date or last updated is better?

cochiloco

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Jan 10, 2019
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Hi all,

For wordpress affiliate sites, is it generally better to remove the date of the post altogether or to show a last updated date? Or does it not make any difference in conversions?

If the last updated date is the way to go, does anyone know of any plugins that do this automatically? i.e. show a random date within the last X months as the updated date?

Thanks in advance,
Alex
 
When you “update” the date you should be changing up to 40% of the content while doing it. Otherwise Google sees the content as duplicate from the past with a simple date update.

Google is a lot smarter than it is given credit for.

The threshold for duplicate content is 60% the same. Meaning 40% is different and therefore it is unique.

Putting one and one together and you get what should be done to signal the freshness trigger.
 
Very interesting take, thanks! I never actually thought of that.

My aim was solely for user engagement. I didn't want to signal freshness to google, but when users read reviews, I think it should either show a recent date or no date at all.

I'm assuming just updating the date doesn't penalize the page as duplicate content though, it just doesn't signal any actual freshness to Google.
 
If you update the post in a meaningful manner, then it would be helpful to your visitor to see that it's been updated. I think date in SERPS is one of the primary things that people look for when they decide where to click. Would you ever click an article about Photoshop from 2017? I certainly wouldn't.
 
CCarter said:
When you “update” the date you should be changing up to 40% of the content while doing it. Otherwise Google sees the content as duplicate from the past with a simple date update.

Google is a lot smarter than it is given credit for.

The threshold for duplicate content is 60% the same. Meaning 40% is different and therefore it is unique.

Putting one and one together and you get what should be done to signal the freshness trigger.
Click to expand...

This reply is exactly what I was looking for for a recent situation. A question for @CCarter what if you have a comprehensive best list article for over 5000 words, is there an exception there where you could change or add 500 words top of page and still have it trigger freshness?
 
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