The reason for putting so much effort into SEO is to gain as much traffic to a website as possible. There are endless ways to do this, especially with the recent changes to Google’s search algorithms. These are changes that have sent many scurrying to undo years worth of poor SEO practices that are now negatively affecting websites. As any knowledgeable Texas web design firm will confirm, there is one more change to make in light of recent algorithm changes, which is to remove post dates on older blog and site postings. Don’t remove the content; only remove or turn off the dates for the following reasons.
The recent Google Panda and Penguin updates have been harsh on many websites. The good part of it is that it removed a lot of poor websites from the search results; the bad part is that it has also removed a lot of very relevant, quality content because of poor SEO methods. Apparently, one of the newer ways that Google is filtering good content from bad content is by post and comment dates.
Removal From Results by Post Dates
Understandably, the theory that posts 2 or 3 years old are probably out of date information-wise is probably true in many cases – but not in all cases. Many times years-old information is just as relevant as it was the day it was published. So search engines eliminating pages by age is having a drastic, negative effect on some websites due to considerably lower click-through rates which means lower exposure; lower exposure means lower conversions, and so on.
Change or Eliminate
With this in mind, what many Texas web design experts have begun to experiment with and are finding quite effective is to remove post dates and comment dates older than 6 months. Then all current and recent pages can be referred to as just that – recent; older pages will simply be indexed based on content without being affected by dates. Interestingly, what is being noted through this change is that older pages are gaining more traffic than received in a long time. This is basic evidence that posting dates were keeping such pages from being ranked, the complete opposite of what was attempted and desired.
Increased Visibility
Additionally, it has also been proven that when links with newer dates show up in search results, they are much likely to get clicked than older results, even if the older post contains the most relevant information. By removing the dates from older posts, they are put on a more even playing field with other results displayed. This is also valid for comments on posts as well, since such posts index directly to a web page and can therefore age it even if there is no date on the actual post.
The way to get this information out of older posts and comments can depend on the website or publishing platform. In some cases, it is possible to manipulate page settings so that archived posts can have dates removed. For removing comment dates, such action might require some code manipulation as well, which would be better handled by a Texas web design firm. Another option is to turn off post dating and comments completely. Either way, this seems to be a very important piece of information that has come out of Google’s newer, stricter search engine guidelines. So be sure to remove those older post dates and increase website traffic right away!
Let Web Unlimited Be Your Texas Web Design Firm to Handle All of Google’s Changes!
If you don’t understand all of the recent changes by Google, finding a great Texas web design firm to help you is a great decision. Call Web Unlimited at 979-696-2500 for the website help that you need!