[Experiment] New Year, New Oopsie - Your Published/ Updated Date Matters

First of all, this is my first time posting a thread on the blogging section giving insight. I think what I am going to share is already established thing and is pretty obvious and everybody knows it. But still, I want to share it with you guys. Just in case anyone finds it interesting and useful.

So the thing is, The new year has just arrived, so it was time for me to update all posts on my Wordpress site. And by updating I mean changing the latest APK version and changing the published date to the new year. I usually update all my posts weekly. This is because I have an APK site and I need to update the APKs on my site weekly because the APK updates are released weekly. So when I update the APK versions, I also change the published date on WordPress. I have been doing this for quite some time now, despite Google telling us that it's not going to give any special importance if we are changing/updating dates when the content has not changed significantly. This has been working positively for me and never showed any disadvantages for the site.



So on the first day of the year, as usual, I updated all my money articles with the published date of January 1st, 2024. ‍ One crucial money article had a little "oops" attached to it—I changed the date to January 1st but forgot to update the year. Classic move, right? Only a human, folks.

Fast forward, and my prized article took a dive from #4 to #15 in the rankings. Apparently, Google's algorithm wasn't vibing with the time-traveling content. Lesson learned: changing the date to last year? Not the brightest idea.



Now, for the plot twist! Luckily, I spotted my little date hiccup, switched it to 2024, and requested Google to reindex it. Voila! My money article is back on track, comfortably hanging out at the #5 spot.

So, here I am, sharing my Mr. Obvious moment with you all. Ever been there? How do you handle date updates on your articles? Do you tweak the content too, or are you on the team "just change the date"? Let's spill the tea and share the wisdom.

Cheers to a year of blogging blunders and victories!

Af

Yes, it is best practice to tweak the content too when changing date.

You could probably bring your money page back to the top (even higher than it was) if you append or change at least 20% of he content and then change the date again.

tiiberius said:

Yes, it is best practice to tweak the content too when changing date.

You could probably bring your money page back to the top (even higher than it was) if you append or change at least 20% of he content and then change the date again.

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Yeah, I did change images that had 2023 written on them and replaced them with 2024. I also made changes to some paragraphs and made it apparent that the app and content are updated for 2024. Made a change to the title as well. xD

Af-Conqueror said:

Yeah, I did change images that had 2023 written on them and replaced them with 2024. I also made changes to some paragraphs and made it apparent that the app and content are updated for 2024. Made a change to the title as well. xD

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Let's see how it goes. Keep us updated.

just keep publishing content. no need to follow google's reps "guidelines"
just do what works

High_Stakes_Ads said:

just keep publishing content. no need to follow google's reps "guidelines"
just do what works

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Yup. That's what I am doing for the past few months.

Af-Conqueror said:

Yup. That's what I am doing for the past few months.

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yeah, dont follow "gogole's guidelines"

I don't add visible date to any of my sites and they just fine.

Waifu_tatyana said:

I don't add visible date to any of my sites and they just fine.

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Yeah, we can choose to not show the visible dates. However, there will always be a published or updated time/date for each article on WordPress. Not sure about any other blogging platforms. And Google considers it. Doesn't matter if you show it or not.

That was the point of this thread. When I mistakenly set the date 1 year ago, my rankings dropped. @tiiberius (You wanted me to keep you updated) Now the article is back on the spot where it was originally. It started to gain rankings since I fixed it. Took a couple of days and it's going fine now.

Af-Conqueror said:

Yeah, we can choose to not show the visible dates. However, there will always be a published or updated time/date for each article on WordPress. Not sure about any other blogging platforms. And Google considers it. Doesn't matter if you show it or not.

That was the point of this thread. When I mistakenly set the date 1 year ago, my rankings dropped. @tiiberius (You wanted me to keep you updated) Now the article is back on the spot where it was originally. It started to gain rankings since I fixed it. Took a couple of days and it's going fine now.

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Happy for you man.

These small technical issues can have tremendous impact sometimes.

Thanks for the update.

Be careful while making your adjustments. I recently noticed an article about this year still carrying 2023 somewhere.

medialounge said:

Be careful while making your adjustments. I recently noticed an article about this year still carrying 2023 somewhere.

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I have been updating the published date weekly for the months and never saw any negative effect. For me, it's working fine. Another big reason to do it is that my competitors are also doing the same thing. So I guess I gotta stick to it.