Date on Blog Posts - Yay or Nay?

When I visit a site, I like to see the date something was published. If, for example, you're talking about a weight loss supplement, I'd want to know if it was new or old information. If it was written years ago, I can't trust that the info is still relevant. There could have been recalls or better products to hit the market since then. If there's no date, I cannot consider that information as relevant because I don't know how old it is. If there is a date, and it's recent, then I know it may be fresher information.

The downside of dating it is that, if it's old, it may not have the freshness I want. You could, of course, remedy that by including a line that says something like "last updated xx-xx-xxxx" and then I'll have some idea you're keeping the information up to date. However, in many cases, that may not be feasible to check all your old content.

If the information is truly evergreen, like building a birdhouse for example, then there's no real downside to including the date. And the upside is that it can lend more authority to your site. Oh, you've had a site on building birdhouses since 2001? You've been around so you must be doing something right. (Assuming, of course, the site is on its own domain and not hosted on a free service that never deletes abandoned sites.)

I have been weighing this issue myself, and leaning toward removing the dates. I don't want someone seeing that the post is dated in 2006 and not clicking through (or immediately leaving) even though the info is still current.

If you use WordPress, you might look at the Date Exclusion plugin. It will remove the date from a post after X days. So you might publish content with dates, but have the date disappear after 60 or 90 days.

I usually look at the published date. If I see a blog that hasn't published in a long time, I'm less likely to read much of it.

If it is evergreen I recommend against dates. I don´t think it add any credibility to have the date on evergreen sites and it can look bad if you haven´t updated in a while.

If you don´t show the dates you can update when you feel for it without the pressure of keeping the site active.

If it's dated material, like a news blog, or pop culture, etc, you should use dates. If it's generic information just meant for Adsense clicks, or affiliate sales, I wouldn't use dates. Think about it from the point of what do you want your visitor to do? If I am searching some news about something timely, and I don't see a date (and would like one), I'll back out and go to Google to find something with dates mentioned, so you should also know your target audience and/or how to get them to come to your site in the first place.

Best wishes,
Eric

No date. Reason? Something SEO something...

I update post on my blogs and change the dates.
My way of thinking is visitors will be more likely to stay longer at the blog site and may return for updated content.

My Best 2 U,
LindaC

In my opinion the blog posts must have the date post (depends on the blog niche!) because when I enter that website and I do not see the last update, my first thing in mind is to close it because I lose time, and I go further. If I see when was updated the last time, I will start browse the blog, and it's more interesting staying for a while and see if there are new things posted (updated).
Browsing users don't have time to lose, so it's sure to keep a date on the blog posts.