undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Content Development
  4. Do you think its better to have a published date AND a last updated date ? Does google even look if you updated but left the published date old

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Do you think its better to have a published date AND a last updated date ? Does google even look if you updated but left the published date old

Content Development
3
6
1.1k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • ianizaguirre
    ianizaguirre last edited by Dec 9, 2016, 4:26 AM

    Do you think its better to have a published date AND a last updated date on Posts ? Does google even look if you updated but left the published date old

    I was thinking of adding a "last updated" field to my articles. But is it worth it? or should I just keep it uncluttered and leave only the last published date? I would think that Google would not notice if I updated a last updated meta field since their is a published date field already.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • EGOL
      EGOL @ianizaguirre last edited by Dec 9, 2016, 5:50 PM Dec 9, 2016, 5:50 PM

      I agree about not using css to hide the date.  I would not hide anything on a webpage.

      I don't know enough about WordPress to tell you how to do that.  It probably can be done, but I don't know for sure.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • ianizaguirre
        ianizaguirre @EGOL last edited by Dec 9, 2016, 5:36 PM Dec 9, 2016, 5:36 PM

        Thank you for your response.

        If I am going to NOT include a date on some posts - How would I go about doing this?

        I use wordpress, and the post date is included in the post meta field by default when a post is published. I do not think that simply using css to hide the post date by "display:none" is the correct way, since that would only hide it from people and not from a google crawler. And I would NOT want to hide the date on ALL posts - Only on some posts. Do you know how I would go about implementing this? Would this require that I make another post template or something?

        EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Dec 9, 2016, 5:50 PM Reply Quote 1
        • ianizaguirre
          ianizaguirre @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by Dec 9, 2016, 5:33 PM Dec 9, 2016, 5:33 PM

          Thank you for your response.

          But did they update their posts date ? Or just a p span that said something like Last Updated: 11/02/15

          That is where I am confused. I use wordpress so I am trying to understand, that if I do implement a "Last Updated" field, I want to know if I have to physically code it into my single posts template file a certain way so that google can know what it is when it crawls it. The last thing I would want is to code it, but code it a certain way that google will see it as a p span that is part of the body text and not as a special last updated meta field or something like that. I see there are some plugins but I don't want to use a plugin for one meta field.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • EGOL
            EGOL last edited by Dec 28, 2016, 11:44 PM Dec 9, 2016, 11:54 AM

            I think that a lot of articles can be written without a date if they are content that is close to being totally evergreen.   If you add a date to these articles and that date is a few years old, it can tarnish the opinion of the visitor when there is nothing wrong with the article, and the article might even be among the very best on the web.  So, I don't date a lot of my articles for that reason.

            I am always upgrading articles, which is different from updating.  An update is when you add fresh news or information that is totally new about the subject.  An upgrade is when you add another section of evergreen content, add new photos, improve photos, add a video,  do a rewrite for clarity, or other type of improvement.  I notice that when I upgrade an article it often moves higher in the SERPs.  Usually just a few positions if it is on the first page, but if it is deep in the SERPs, it might move up substantially.  I've never had anything move from bottom of first page to #1, unless it moved into the featured snippet.

            If you have a website with a few thousand articles and your author team is two or three people, if each of them update or upgrade one article every working day, there will be articles on your site that go a long time without an update.  Figure 200 working days in a year and a three person team.... if you have a 6000 article website that means it will take ten years to upgrade or update every article - if you do them in a straight rotation.

            ianizaguirre 1 Reply Last reply Dec 9, 2016, 5:36 PM Reply Quote 3
            • Andy.Drinkwater
              Andy.Drinkwater last edited by Dec 9, 2016, 9:28 AM Dec 9, 2016, 9:28 AM

              There have been some interesting articles surfacing recently on this with the last study I read (this week) showing that simply updating the date with "Last Updated" and updating the article, refreshed something that was a year old and that had dropped from the first page to the second, and had reached position 1 again.

              This is definitely something that anyone with a blog should look to do.

              -Andy

              ianizaguirre 1 Reply Last reply Dec 9, 2016, 5:33 PM Reply Quote 3
              • 1 / 1
              1 out of 6
              • First post
                1/6
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              Browse Questions

              Explore more categories

              • Moz Tools

                Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

              • SEO Tactics

                Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

              • Community

                Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

              • Digital Marketing

                Chat about tactics outside of SEO

              • Research & Trends

                Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

              • Support

                Connect on product support and feature requests.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • Enrico_Cassinelli

                Write new articles or republish old ones?

                content development content optimization

                Hi,
                we run a tourism information website about a region in italy, and each year, during special occasions such as christmas, easter and so on we publish an article with a "what to do on Christmas / Easter / .... in the Langhe" (collecting events, activities, etc.). Is it better to "reuse" the old articles and change only the year in the title and of course the content (providing that we are gonna keep the URL without year), or to publish a new one? thanks!

                Content Development | May 30, 2024, 10:16 PM | Enrico_Cassinelli
                0
              • ifixcars

                Does Google consider breadcrumbs to be duplicate titles?

                duplicate titles multiple titles breadcrumbs google moz

                Moz has been flagging a lot of our articles for duplicate titles. I noticed that the website was automatically generating the same words that were used for the titles above the articles and main images. But those are bread crumbs. Does anyone know if Google also considers those duplicate titles? I'm not sure if the screenshot I'm uploading will appear, but this is one of the blog posts the extra wording was showing up on: https://hometowneautorepairandtireofwoodbridge.com/blog/when-why-replace-spark-plugs/

                Content Development | Sep 15, 2023, 7:19 AM | ifixcars
                1
              • EstherBrice

                Does google penalize you if you post content in french and english on a website

                I'm trying to encourage content editors to only  post content in either English or French. For example we have a French press release but the team are wanting it on our site in French and English.  I thought this would fall under duplicate content rules. Does google penalize you if you post content in French and English on a website?

                Content Development | Jan 8, 2020, 2:33 PM | EstherBrice
                0
              • peteboyd

                How to create a dynamic visual sitemap using Google sheets?

                Does anyone have a solution where you can use a listing of page names with tiers in a Google spreadsheet and have it dynamically appear in a visual sitemap architecture format within in a Google document? Thanks in advance Moz community!

                Content Development | May 16, 2019, 11:52 AM | peteboyd
                0
              • Marketing-Omoda

                How to deal with lot of old content that doesn't drive traffic - delete?

                Hi community, i hope someone can help me with this, We are migrating our e-commerce site next februari. I'm preparing the content migration. For a large part exact copies of our product listing and product detail pages will be migrated. 
                However, we also have a lot of old blog content, which is, because of seasonality and trendiness, outdated and doesn't drive traffic anymore. It actually is just worthless content. (Not only as a traffic driver, this also counts for extremely low to none internal driven traffic (both internal search and internal navigation). We have about 4.000+ blogs of which about 100 drive the most traffic (mostly incited by e-mail and social campaigns and internal navigation promoted on important category landing pages during some period. Is it a bad signal to search engines to delete these old content pages? I.a.: going from a content-rich to a content-poor site?
                Off course I will migrate the top 100 traffic earning content and provide proper redirects to them

                Content Development | Nov 3, 2017, 1:12 PM | Marketing-Omoda
                0
              • CommercePundit

                Can We Publish Duplicate Content on Multi Regional Website / Blogs?

                Today, I was reading Google's official article on Multi Regional website and use of duplicate content. Right now, We are working on 4 different blogs for following regions. And, We're writing unique content for each blog. But, I am thinking to use one content / subject for all 4 region blogs. USA: http://www.bannerbuzz.com/blog/ UK: http://www.bannerbuzz.co.uk/blog/ AUS: http://www.bannerbuzz.com.au/blog/ CA: http://www.bannerbuzz.ca/blog/ Let me give you very clear ideas on it. Recently, We have published one article on USA website. http://www.bannerbuzz.com/blog/choosing-the-right-banner-for-your-advertisement/ And, We want to publish this article / blog on UK, AUS & CA blog without making any changes. I have read following paragraph on Google's official guidelines and It's inspire me to make it happen. Which is best solution for it? Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this may not always be possible. There is generally no need to "hide" the duplicates by disallowing crawling in a robots.txt file or by using a "noindex" robots meta tag. However, if you're providing the same content to the same users on different URLs (for instance, if both example.de/ and example.com/de/ show German language content for users in Germany), you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately. In addition, you should follow the guidelines on rel-alternate-hreflang to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers.

                Content Development | Jun 13, 2016, 9:32 AM | CommercePundit
                0
              • TMI.com

                Does Google Dislike Slideshows?

                I've noticed a recent drop in organic traffic and a slight dip in rankings. When I looked at who replaced us in the top spots, I noticed text heavy, in depth articles. We produce many articles in the slideshow format. Do you think this is the reason our rankings dropped?

                Content Development | Mar 7, 2014, 2:29 AM | TMI.com
                0
              • Tev

                Publishing on sites with greater domain authority

                Hello, I had an idea, probably not original: While my website is still gaining domain authority, I was thinking about publishing articles in a website with great domain authority that allows articles from third parties. This way the article's relevance + domain authority of the site would result in a better position on Google for the article I write and with proper links, I can attract people to my website. This would be a temporary strategy until my website's domain authority increases. Any suggestions on how to do this? Where can I publish articles to attract people to my website (except blogs)? Thanks a lot.

                Content Development | Aug 9, 2012, 1:11 PM | Tev
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.