Should you leave dates on your posts - The second half of the question....

There has been two posts in the last couple days asking if you should keep dates on your posts or remove them. There is a second part to this question...

I have always agreed it is best to remove them, until I stopped to do a little test...

Go to Google and search for any phrase.

Click Search Tools

Select a date range

Suddenly the question becomes much cloudier. The results for fresh results using a date range show posts that SHOW THE DATE, and are within that range.

If you go to the sites, you will immediately notice they are all displaying the dates. hmmm...Is that important for your site or not?

I don't know how many of you modify your searches to get more up to date content, but I do it very frequently, daily in fact.

I would still tend to remove the dates for evergreen content, since I doubt the average searcher takes the time to use search tools, but if I was publishing content that was frequently updated and changing, I would highly consider leaving the dates.

As an example...How much value is there in SEO information from 2 years ago? I always use search tools to limit my results by date when I am needing current information. So, if you did not use dates on your posts, I would never see them. They would never be in my date limited search results.

I limit my search results on product reviews, travel information, legal issues, and many other topics where the information or rules may have changed.

Just one more thing to think about before you choose to keep dates on your posts, or remove them.