Google: Evergreen Content Doesn’t Need To Change, Keep The Date

Google’s John Mueller was asked how can one communicate to Google that a page with evergreen content is as value as it was when it was first published several years ago. John responded that “If it’s evergreen, then by definition you don’t need to change it. No need to do anything special.”

The SEO wanted to know if the date should be removed, updated, or something else. John said do nothing, just keep it as is.

Here are those tweets:

If it’s evergreen, then by definition you don’t need to change it. No need to do anything special. Keep your dates, make it great.

— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) January 5, 2020

The SEO then said it would be a disadvantage not to do anything. Having an old date show in the Google search results may deter a searcher from clicking on the article in search. John responded.

Why would an article be disadvantaged by a date?

— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) January 6, 2020

So you should manually change the date, manipulate it, to be more recent? Either update the article or leave it alone?

Forum discussion at Twitter.