Cuando empecé WPBeginner allá por 2009, tomé la decisión de no incluir fechas en ninguna de las entradas de mi blog. Lo hice porque me creía más listo que el resto. Mi teoría era que WPBeginner NO es un blog. Es un recurso como el códice de WordPress o Wikipedia ninguno de los cuales tiene fechas en sus artículos. Además, pensé que la eliminación de las fechas de las entradas del blog engañaría a los usuarios haciéndoles creer que mi contenido es perenne. Estaba muy equivocado. En los últimos meses, estoy notando una tendencia que más y más vendedores de Internet y autoproclamados “expertos en SEO” están aconsejando a sus usuarios a eliminar las fechas de sus entradas de blog de WordPress. En este artículo, voy a proporcionar detalles en profundidad sobre por qué elegí no incluir fechas al principio y lo que me hizo cambiar de opinión más tarde. También cubriré si/cuáles son los impactos SEO de tener fechas en las entradas de tu blog (post-penguin y panda). Por último, mi objetivo es que después de leer estas entradas entiendas que tu problema no es con las fechas, sino con la fecha de publicación. He encontrado una solución que te complacerá a ti, a tus usuarios y a los motores de búsqueda.
Razones para quitar / no incluir fechas
Cuando empecé WPBeginner en 2009, siempre lo vi como un sitio de recursos similar al Codex de WordPress o Wikipedia. Si usted ha utilizado cualquiera de los dos, entonces usted sabe que no tienen sello de tiempo o fechas en sus entradas / registros. Probablemente se pregunte cuál podría ser la posible ventaja de esto. Bueno, como usuarios tenemos un prejuicio incorporado hacia el contenido obsoleto. En cuanto vemos una fecha, estamos programados para clasificarlo en una de las dos categorías: anticuado O relevante. En teoría, que el contenido sea antiguo no significa que no sea relevante, pero los usuarios hacen esa suposición. Como bloguera, ese pensamiento me resultaba inquietante porque quería que todo el mundo leyera mi contenido. ¿Qué hice entonces? Decidí no incluir fechas en las entradas de mi blog. Mi pensamiento era que la gente lee Wikipedia incluso cuando tiene información relevante que puede o no estar actualizada. Como el usuario nunca conoce la fecha de publicación original, le concede el beneficio de la duda.
En los últimos meses, he visto a numerosos vendedores de Internet y SEO dando su veredicto en contra de tener fechas en entradas de blog. Cada uno tiene sus propias razones, pero todos siguen la misma palabra de moda: contenido perenne. Cuando los blogs populares como CopyBlogger deciden eliminar las fechas, se establece un ejemplo a seguir para los demás.
Yo ya he pasado por esta ruta, y puedo decirte por qué es una ruta equivocada.
Por qué nunca volvería a quitar las fechas
No cometo el mismo error dos veces. No tener citas al principio fue un error, y no creo que volviera a repetirlo. Mi esperanza es que después de leer esto, usted haría lo mismo. Cuando empecé WPBeginner, mi principal prioridad era ayudar a los usuarios con mis tutoriales de WordPress. Como otros bloggers, quería pensar que mi contenido era perenne. Pero en realidad NO lo es. Aunque vuelvo y actualizo los artículos, no es posible mantenerlo todo al día todo el tiempo.
Al principio, no tuve problemas / conflictos / incidencias con la fecha. Sin embargo, 6 meses después empecé a recibir correos electrónicos de usuarios quejándose de un artículo antiguo. Al principio, me limitaba a actualizar el artículo de inmediato. Sin embargo, a medida que el sitio crecía, actualizar todos los artículos parecía cada vez más improbable. Llegó un momento en que recibía regularmente varios correos electrónicos, tweets o mensajes de Facebook sobre las fechas. Tardé un año y medio en rendirme a mi tozudez y añadir las fechas en la entrada.
En retrospectiva, me di cuenta del flaco favor que estaba haciendo a mis usuarios y a la comunidad de WordPress en general al no incluir las fechas en el sitio. Quería ayudar a los principiantes de WordPress, pero a veces acababa orientándoles mal o causándoles más confusión porque no sabían que estaban viendo una captura de pantalla o un tutorial antiguo.
Con el tiempo, también he aprendido que muy pocas entradas son perennes. Siempre se aprende algo nuevo y los métodos cambian. Te das cuenta cuando alguien cita tus propias palabras en una sesión en la que estás hablando y contradices una entrada anterior. Adivina qué, si esa entrada no tiene fecha, entonces no puedes decir que ese artículo es viejo.
En resumen, si realmente valoras a tus lectores, no quitarías las fechas. Los blogs, por definición, están pensados para no estar actualizados. Tanto si tienes fechas como si no, sigues mostrando tus entradas en orden cronológico inverso. Si realmente cree que su contenido es perenne, ¿por qué no cambia ese orden y muestra las entradas en un orden aleatorio?
Espera, ¿cómo puedo estar satisfecho sabiendo que las entradas de mi blog están desactualizadas? ¿No penaliza Google el contenido obsoleto? ¿Me estoy perdiendo lectores por culpa de los prejuicios de los usuarios hacia las entradas antiguas? Pues estoy satisfecho porque he encontrado una forma alternativa de mostrar las fechas que me mantiene contento a mí y a mis lectores. Supongo que también mantiene contentos a los motores de búsqueda.
Nuevo método de fechas, lectores y motores de búsqueda
Me di cuenta de que mi problema no eran las fechas. Era con la característica de “ fecha de publicación” porque no reflejaba con exactitud la cantidad de trabajo que había invertido en el sitio. La característica de fecha de publicación es relevante para los libros porque los autores no actualizan el libro original. En su lugar, sacan la versión 2. Como blogger, yo personalmente vuelvo a actualizar una o dos entradas cada día en WPBeginner y aún así esa entrada sigue apareciendo como publicada en una fecha anterior. Bueno, por suerte, WordPress también tiene la capacidad de mostrar la “última fecha de actualización”, que en mi opinión era la solución que necesitaba desde el principio.
En los datos de las entradas de WPBeginner, hemos decidido reemplazar la fecha de publicación por la última fecha de actualización. El código es el siguiente:
Last updated on <time datetime="<?php the_modified_time('Y-m-d'); ?>"><?php the_modified_time('F jS, Y'); ?></time>
La función de tiempo modificado en WordPress comprueba la última vez que actualizaste la entrada. Si la última vez que actualizaste la entrada fue cuando la publicaste, entonces muestra la fecha en la que la publicaste. Sin embargo, si volviste a actualizar esa entrada seis meses después, entonces mostrará la última fecha de actualización.
Creo que en el mundo actual, la última fecha de actualización es más valiosa para los lectores que la fecha de publicación real. La fecha de publicación es irrelevante cuando has vuelto a escribir todo el artículo.
En cuanto a los motores de búsqueda, si crees que quitando las fechas de tu diseño los engañarás, entonces eres muy ingenuo. Tu mapa del sitio de WordPress contiene la última fecha de modificación de cada artículo, y es muy probable que hayas enviado tu mapa del sitio a las herramientas para webmasters de Google. Yo personalmente escribo para mis usuarios, y valoro sus pensamientos mucho más que algún motor de búsqueda. Sin embargo, el código anterior sigue un esquema de marcado adecuado que indica a los motores de búsqueda la última hora de actualización de la entrada. Sí, eso significa que Google mostrará la última fecha actualizada junto a tu entrada en lugar de la fecha de publicación original.
Por último, la característica de la hora modificada me satisface como bloguero. Me exijo mucho a mí mismo y sé que mis usuarios tampoco me fallan (gracias a todos por ser tan duros conmigo). Aunque todos los blogs están destinados a estar desactualizados, la audiencia de WPBeginner no tiene permisos para ello. Recibimos informes regulares sobre artículos desactualizados, y hacemos todo lo posible para actualizarlos tan pronto como podemos. Si ves un artículo obsoleto, por favor háznoslo saber tuiteándonos a @wpbeginner o usando el formulario de contacto.
Yup esta solución mantiene a todos contentos.
Hoy en día, sigo viendo WPBeginner como algo más que un blog. Lo veo como el mejor sitio de recursos de WordPress, y añadiendo la fecha creo que lo he hecho aún mejor. Tener relevancia temporal no nos convierte en un mal recurso, más bien nos convierte en un sitio de recursos más útil. Mi esperanza es que con mi opinión, te he convencido de no quitar las fechas de las entradas de tu blog de WordPress. Siempre estoy abierto a la respuesta / comentario / opinión. Por favor, comparta sus pensamientos sobre este debate en los comentarios a continuación.
Syed Balkhi
Hey WPBeginner readers,
Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
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Leo
Great info, can I use the code you shared regarding last updated date for my website?
Cheers
Leo
WPBeginner Support
You should be able to use the same code if you are comfortable with editing your theme’s files.
Administrador
Leo
I am, thank you. One other thing, I recently read John Mueller from Google said if you have made major updates to a piece of content changing the publish date is ok to do. I assume your code would reflect that change of date?
Thanks again, and I just want to say your website has helped me so much over the years.
Keep up the great work, a lot of people would be lost without your info, myself included.
WPBeginner Support
Yes, the code would change the date to the date you published a modification on the page.
sagen
Hi, how to display both the published date and last update date? Thx!
Ross Canning
My website is moving more towards evergreen content that answers specific questions, which for the most part should be relevant for many years to come. So rather than adding the dates now, I still feel it is better to not have nay, as the info will be good for a long time to come. Also there is a lot of pre-existing news info, content which fans know is old. So I think that leaving as is with no dates is the best way to go, for me that is, cheers.
WPBeginner Support
We would still recommend not removing dates for new users/fans to know what content is old or new.
Administrador
Desy
I tell you what dude. If I see a blog post without a posting/publishing date, i close it instantly and go to the next guys blog. Simple as that.
For most of the content I am looking for, it may get oudated as soon as after 2 months. Having to waste my time on something that may be outdated, is not an option.
Suraj Barai
Awesome! I was going to remove the date from comments. But after reading this article. I can understand that we should not remove date..
Thanks.
WPBeginner Support
You’re welcome, glad our post could be informative
Administrador
Blair Witkowski
How about author? I use a css code to hide the author in my theme and on client websites because they don’t want a name appearing at the top of the page. For example, my client who is a realtor doesn’t want my name showing on their blog that I am the author. Does this hurt SEO?
WPBeginner Support
It shouldn’t have a major effect on your SEO
Administrador
James Early
I understand why dates are important to your readers because you have new info coming out. My blog is about the Bible and I share insights and stories that are more evergreen than what you’re doing. Is there a reason to have the date stamp on my plugs with my kind of content. What would the advantage be? Less than 5% of my posts are related to events or what’s going on in the world. The focus is on a message about a particular Bible story.
Thanks so much
WPBeginner Support
It could be helpful if you mention recent events in your messages but if you feel all of your content would be evergreen then it would be personal preference for the date.
Administrador
Robert
Hi, manual removing as well as wp meta and date remover and other plugins don’t work with urls containing date; dates still are in search result. What to do? I don’t want to change permalinks.
Tim D. Hodges
Write down a list of the old dates, Change the permalink, and then get a plug in that redirects the old URLs to the new URLs. Problem solved.
Sunil Kumar
Yes, it’ll be very hectic but this the solution.
Michelle
Hi Syed,
Do you have a plug in for “last updated?” The last time I tried to code something myself I got the white screen of death
Cheers,
Michelle
WPBeginner Support
Hi Michelle,
Please take a look at our guide on how to show last updated date for your posts in WordPress.
Administrador
Alexio
With your code the “Last updated on” will show up even on new posts.
I suggest to add this code so it only appears on updated posts:
<time datetime="”>
Yin Teing
Thanks so much for this post! This is so true even in 2017.
Your posts have given me the encouragement not to follow what most blogs are doing today, which is removing dates from their blog posts and the permalinks, then doing 301 redirects.
I’ve maintained a couple of older blogs in which the date is part of the url permalinks. After reading your blog posts, I’ve decided to maintain the permalink structure for my older blogs.
As for the newer blogs that I am setting up, I change the permalink structure not to display the dates, but I’ve included the date in the article.
Like what you mentioned “Bottomline is if you truly value your readers, then you would not remove dates.”….I totally agree with you.
I wish to thank you for all the wonderful tutorials that you have updated on this site.
WPBeginner Support
Hello Yin,
We are glad you fount this article helpful
Don’t forget to join us on Twitter for more WordPress tips and tutorials.
Administrador
Taylor
Just FYI: copyblogger.com is using dates now :). All of their stuff is dated (I checked).
Mohd Shabaz
I Have A Software Download Website And I Want To Add A Option When I Update The Post With The New Version Of Software The Post Will Be Published On The Same Date I Update It
Mariilyn Lesniak
I write recipes and want to bring them to my homepage as well as to rss feed. Is there a way to do this without changing the date as a scheduled post and let it republish at a specified future time?
Stephanie
Thanks for this post, very interesting perspective, I appreciate it! I actually found your post because my theme is putting the DATE in the URL! do you have any advice on how I could fix this so it’s just the blog title?
Ahmed
Edit your permalinks. go to Settings > Permalinks. Choose “post name” instead of “date and name”. Save settings
Catherine
Thank you I have installed this code and it shows my post has been updated on today’s date……but my other posts STILL show no dates…..where do I do to turn the date published back on?
Angelo B Hall
Ugh …..
Faith have it so i stumble upon your post about the same thing am looking to resolve .The date and time from my blog . I agree with you about making your own decision on keeping it or not most bloggers have looked over the fact of posts being old but in fact seeing the time stamp is like a memory lane which you wish to remember or like a birth date or a year in which you would love to relive . Sometimes we forget that pleasing everyone is not the best decision … We also often forget the reason we blog .. its not for time and date but for relevant content to help our viewers out or to give them some incite on what they never really thought about . You made my decision clear on keeping it .. & plus lol trying to remove it is harder than , I expected …..
Thanks for the good read
EMB
Perhaps all bloggers have been thinking about this problem.
Every person has the right to choose a suitable model for yourself.
I appreciate your article. It’s a proper thought.
Anthony Attard
One thing to note is that for sites that use Wordpress as an ecommerce site or any site that is not a blog, removing the date is very useful.
Tremi
Thanks for sharing this wonderful post. I also had this thought before. Later I add the data to post just for the sake of adding. But now I realise why dates are important in the blog post.
Sameer Panda
Very helpful. can I just replace the above mentioned code with my original code or what? Please guide me.
Bang Amri
I just thinking to remove date from my articles , cause I think outdated articles is no good for my SEO . also not good looking from visitor viewer when they read articles from date 2005.
nice share bro.
Brian Reich
Personally I think dates in the URL make them harder to share, look sloppy, and make them uneccessarily longer, which could have an SEO effect. So while I’ve used them on my blog since before I knew better, I haven’t used them in a whole and won’t use them going forward.
I agree with you though, the date that the post was last modified is critical. I like what Yoast and others have been doing: actually using their old, outdated content as a resource by updating it and reposting it. It gives readers who might have missed the old content a second chance at reading it, and provides readers that might stumble upon the old content an updated perspective on the article’s topic. It’s very much a win/win approach that I plan on adopting myself!
Raymond Selda
Thanks so much for putting my mind at peace. haha. I’ve already applied this tutorial on my sites.
Prabhudatta Sahoo
Hi There, I need a small help. Right now I am showing last modified date in my blog but even after that while in SERP it still shows my published date. Is there any reason for that? Or how do I change that to show last modified date in SERP as well?
Kelvin
I’m thinking of displaying date on my Blog BUT hiding date from Search engines.
How do I go about this?
Mark
try this if you’re trying to remove the dates from search engines, also worth clearing the cache.
add_filter( ‘wpseo_show_date_in_snippet_preview’, false); //Returning false on this will prevent the date from showing up in the snippet preview.
Mark
ps: add it within the functions.php file of your theme and may be wait till the bots crawl back again or re-submit the sitemap ..hope it helps
add_filter( ‘wpseo_show_date_in_snippet_preview’, false); //Returning false on this will prevent the date from showing up in the snippet preview.
Alfonski
Now I will never remove dates, but I shall update my articles from time to time
Nate
I was thinking of removing dates but only wanted to do so for particular posts that were evergreen. However using a “last updated on” date stamp seems like the perfect solution! Thanks for sharing this great idea.
Gabriel Livan
Thanks for this post guys. I agree that “last updated on” is so much better better than “published on”. I had a feeling about it and you confirmed that. Keep up the good work on WP Beginner!
John
old post I know (the date was on it
)
… I am starting a brand new blog and want to write articles.. back-fill.. posts that should be dated from 2012.. its blog with a story of events. The site is not live so no xml sitemap has been submitted. Eventually the site will have many posts dated from 2012 until 2015.. then I will go live.
Will Google punish me for such behavior?
WPBeginner Staff
Yep, seems like they do show dates now.
James Artre
Out of curiosity, I went and checked over at Copyblogger… and they DO show the dates in their posts.
It could be that they have updated their setting since your last update of this post.
Syed Balkhi
If you’re doing a major rewrite, then sure you can do that. However if it’s minor edits, then it might become annoying for subscribers to keep seeing the old article in their RSS feed or worst in their emails (if you use RSS to email function).
kristl
Whenever I update an article, I actually change the publish date (to the date I updated it), so it moves to the front on my blog, and my subscribers see the new one. Do you see any problem with that?
Brett
If I do a full re-write to improve an old article, and paste the new article over the old one to retain the URL, should the post be marked “no follow” for a period of time to allow search engines to de-index it before allowing them to again follow the post and hopefully rank it higher, or does it not matter that I overwrite the old article and leave it immediately open to search engines?
Allyson Williams
Fabulous info. I update some blog posts annually and have been searching for a way to do this. I am using the Thesis theme. Can you walk me through how to do this for my blog?
WPBeginner Support
We do not offer support for individual WordPress themes and theme frameworks. Please contact your theme’s support, they will be able to help you better.
Administrador
Richard
I am TOTALLY baffled by how to go into Wordpress.com and alter any sort of code. I do mean TOTALLY baffled.
I like the idea of “last updated” solution–but I haven’t the foggiest notion of how I could alter the basic
stuff I get with my free Wordpress.com blog site.
My goal is to write a book-form blog about my recent visit to Myanmar aka Burma. I want the posts to be chronological and I am using a static front page and still trying to figure out how to make this all play nicely together.
Please tell me exactly how I would click through my Site Admin or Dashboard or whatever to modify the postings attached to the static front page to show “last updated.”
With gratitude.
Richard
WPBeginner Support
It would be difficult for you if you are using a free blog on WordPress.com. Please see our guide on the difference between WordPress.org vs WordPress.com
Administrador
George Almeida
Nice post! I tend to agree with having the date on your posts. I think it helps your readers for sure. One thing I’ve noticed with my blog is that even though I post the published data on all my blog posts, the date never shows up on the Search results. I’m not complaining really, it’s kind of the best of both worlds if you think about it. Anyone who sees one of my posts in their search, only sees the title and the Author but no date. If they click on the link, they will see the post AND the published date. This way, folks may not skip the post simply because it was posted 1 year ago and they do not get lost. It’s a win win. I wish I could tell you how I have this working but I don’t really know. I’m using a hosted WordPress blog. Thanks again for the article!
Jennifer Roberts
Thanks. As a reader I hate it when bloggers remove dates from time-sensitive posts. As a blogger, though, I’ve had some good posts get lost in search results because they weren’t new, even though I had updated them. This sounds like a great solution. I hope it works for me.
João Marcos
How add DATE to dinamic descripition using this code… ?
add_action( ‘wp_head’, ‘gen_meta_desc’ );
function gen_meta_desc()
{
global $post;
if ( ! is_home() )
return;
$meta = strip_tags( $post->post_content );
$meta = str_replace( array( “\\n”, “\\r”, “\\t” ), ‘ ‘, $meta);
$meta = substr( $meta, 0, 125 );
echo “”;
}
Rich Page
Awesome! Finally the solution I was also looking for – I was always wondering whether to remove dates or not for my classic old content – this is the perfect solution! Thanks!
Katiero Porto
It’s really simple! It depends on your niche, style and focus. If your blog is about something that is always changing, you will have to post almost everyday, update the posts sometimes and you can’t remove post dates.
Only those who have some sort of atemporal content, let’s say who are writing things about history or religion, those people can hide dates if they want to because their content is naturally evergreen. It will help the reader today and ten years from now.
So my suggestion is if you want to post less and think about long term you should choose an atemporal topic to blog, not something that changes everyday like internet marketing or wordpress.
Patty Ayers
But nobody wants outdated WordPress information, so WordPress info really *must* be either freshly written *or* evergreen, if it’s to have any value. And it can be.
Bloke
I want outdated Wordpress information.
Lora Y
I totally agree. My blog posts are not in any way time-sensitive, but more philosophical in nature. I don’t see the point in adding dates to these posts. My reason for removing them is so that readers wouldn’t realize how inconsistent I am at posting. Terrible. I know.
bernice
This post is great, thanks for making it. However, I am a real newbie. Where do I put this code?
Thanks again.
WPBeginner Support
In your WordPress theme or a child theme you would replace get_the_date(); or the_time(); line. These lines are usually spread in your templates and display a post’s published date and time.
Administrador
bernice
okay, thanks.
Kira
I disagree with this particular viewpoint but still a great article!!
Davide De Maestri
I disagree too
Hayslan
Wow! I was just installing my new blog and thinking in removing the posts dates.
Coincidentally I came here on the blog and at some point I saw the article about “How to Install and Setup W3 Total Cache for Beginners” somewhere and thought, “I’ve read this article before .. is it made another?”. I went to check and saw it was the same article with a difference: updated!
Not enough the article in question, just falling with a parachute here in this article .. let’s face it, awesome and helpful!
You simply rock!
Neeraj Pathania
I wanna ask you about something. I have a wordpress blog and what i do is update each post monthly. So here’s my doubt:” Is there any limit on the number of times any single post can be updated.” I know that the chances of that might be slim to none. But i want to be sure.
Please reply ASAP!
WPBeginner Support
There is no harm in that.
Administrador
Jim
Thank you for doing this post, I was actually thinking of getting rid of the dates on my site, and now I know why not to. I see how valuable they truly are, thank you again!!
Ian Thomson
Great post and I agree 100%. I am very pleased you are thinking about the reader. If I can’t find a date I ignore the post and move on as it has limited value without one. I have just left comments with another blogger who proclaims himself a “leading social media marketing and online marketing expert”. He evangelises not using dates and does not accept that all information ages. Oh well.
Naeem
What about the dates in Blogger Urls, like on my blog at
I am thinking of removing the date stamps in URL because they might affect SEO.
What are your views on it?
WPBeginner Support
We don’t use dates in WPBeginner’s URL structure. However, dates in URL can positively affect sites like newspaper sites, journals, other sites where dates are important to the relevancy and context of the content.
Administrador
Kenneth von Rauch
Thanks for the post, Syed. What you say makes perfect sense. I just want to add that it still depends on the niche. For example, you can use WordPress as a Welcome site for a brick and mortar company. Such companies still exist and they just want their contact details to be ‘available on the Web”.
That said, I totally agree that in the case of WPBeginner.com, it’s beneficial to display post dates.
As for the code you offer, it works just fine, but you can just install the WP Last Modified plugin that does exactly the same. The advantage is that you won’t have to mess around with any code. The only issue with the plugin is that it does not remove the ‘Posted on’ text. I personally believe the users should have the option to decide whether to keep that text or not.
Dpot
I always prefer the use of date.
Personally it allows me to see in which date I published what!
Thank you