Managing your website articles for maximum SERP performance
The more current an article, the more accurate it is – right?
But not necessarily. If an article contains quality, well-written content, it doesn’t matter whether it’s dated yesterday or three years ago.
Of course, some material is time-sensitive (although – I don’t know about you – but I still get a shock every time I read that Gary Moore is dead). However, even outside topical, news-related issues, it’s a common misconception that the more recent the information the better it is. If you ask the average web surfer whether they rate web content such as a blog post or industry article by its timestamp, they will probably say yes.
Valuable, ‘strong’ content shouldn’t be confused with current events. General information is immutable; since it doesn’t change, it shouldn’t be judged by its age. Unfortunately, try telling search engines and the average user that web content should be viewed in the same way as cheese or Aston Martins.
Given the option of two articles, the majority of users will choose the more recent, as they subconsciously equate more recent as better. Even if your site is crammed full of scintillating, mind-blowing content, it will get a low rank on SERPs if it’s being ranked lower because of its vintage.
Many companies now choose to post articles or blog content without a date. This is a basic SEO technique, intended to stop quality content being judged for collecting cobwebs.
So that’s the solution, right? Publish articles with no timestamp? Yes, but there’s a catch, in the form of visitor comments. Whenever someone posts an appreciative comment on your blog, it is dated.
This means you either have to turn off the comments feature, or regularly delete older comments.
Managing your elderly posts can make a difference in maintining your page ranking and keeping your website looking fresh and perky.
