Should we change the publish date in WordPress when updating a post?

[TomNYC]

Hi everyone,

We're going through some of our old posts in our WordPress blog and updating them, adding new information, new links, and photos. My question: If we update the posts significantly, should we also update the "published" date to today?

If we only correct some typos or a dead link, we don't touch the date. However, if we've done some real work on the post, we'd like to update the published date in order to bring it to the top of our blog feed and draw new attention to the post. However, I'm a little nervous that this could be seen by Google as spammy, as it's not technically a new post and the URL already exists in Google's index of our site.

Here's an example of a post that was published several years ago and then updated a few week's ago with new information (and a new date stamp): http://www.eurocheapo.com/blog/barcelona-tip-five-cheap-eats-under-e6.html

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Tom

[TomNYC]

Thanks for the great answer, Ray. We have been adding a note at the bottom of the post that it's been updated. I think we'll take your advice and give it a bigger call out at the top.

[Ray-pp]

I would say that the only piece missing is the notification to the user that the article content has been updated.

Let's say that I read your blog everyday. I've seen this post previously, read it, and the content is value-added. Now I notice that the same post is again at the top of your blog - why? When I click into the article it seems similar to me, at first glance.

I would suggest putting a highlighted notification at the top of the post that informs the read the content has been updated for the latest trands|content|info|your word here

Now it makes perfect sense to update the publish date, informs the user that there is new content in the article, and it makes perfect sense for articles that are as old as your example.

[PrintPlace.com]

I would update the date if the article has had a substantial change in content or the way it was written. It may help it get crawled sooner.

Malcom