To Date or Not to Date (your blog posts)

To date or not to date your blog posts, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler for blog posts to suffer
The slings and arrows of becoming “outdated”,
Or to take arms against a sea of information
And by date-stamping end confusion.

Okay, well, I’m no Shakespeare, but you get the gist. The question of “Should you date your blog posts?” continues to be a big debate in marketing and blogger communities. There are pros and cons on both sides of the argument, so – as most things in marketing – it really it comes down to what is best for your unique purposes and audience.

Personally though, it’s a big pet peeve of mine. How many times have you searched Google looking for timely data/info on a topic only to find that most of the search results displayed don’t have a date-stamp? There are literally millions of posts on any given subject. It’s bad enough spending time weeding through the sea of information, but when I finally find what looks like the answer to whatever I’m searching for and there’s no date on the blog post, well, do I bother clicking on that link or not? For all I know it was posted a decade ago.

Click – skim post – hit browser back button – scroll through additional search results – click on something else – skim the post – browser back button – this time right-click to open link in new tab – skim post – close tab – repeat ad nauseam. Sound familiar?

Of course, I’m not always looking for timely information. And thus the other side of the debate. Evergreen content with an older date-stamp – all things being equal – will probably be less appealing just by the nature of people assuming it’s outdated. While your evergreen content may not get outdated, it’s a bit like assigning it an expiration date.

Still, I’d much prefer to see date-stamps on articles when I’m searching for information online. In fact, so much so that when looking for time-sensitive information I no longer even bother to click on a link in the Google search results unless it shows a date-stamp. Even though it could have been posted yesterday, it’s not worth my time to click through dozens of non-dated posts just to find out. And when the information I’m looking for isn’t time-sensitive, then I just ignore the dates.

But maybe that’s just me.

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the topic. Do you click through from searches to read posts that don’t show a date-stamp or not? Comment below or share with your comments on your favorite social media site.

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