Frequent contents update

SEO Benefits?

[Algebrator]

I would appreciate if someone could shed some light on the following:
What are the benefits (if any) of frequent web site contents update? What I mean but this is not adding new quality text (advantages of which are obvious), but rather changing the existing contents frequently.
From what I understand (correct me if wrong), frequent updates will make the spider come by more often.
Are there any additional SEO benefits? If not, why would I care if I get more frequent spider visits?
I have heard people installing silly things like automatic date changes, counters, cron jobs that change spacing between the words; all that so that pages would seem 'fresh' to googlebot and others.
Do these tactics make any sense at all, unless you are adding actual new contents (in which case you probably don't need the above anyway)?

[RobinL]

I would say, that the more frequent the content, the more likely others are going to visit your site and find articles that they want to link to, and those links will boost you in the SERPs. I believe that frequent content (news) is the best marketing tool you can have into todays web.

[Algebrator]

I understand that; I was just wondering if there are any benefits from the point of view of SEO - is there any effect on SERPs when contents if frequently changed, but not necessarily by adding new relevant text (articles etc.)?

[hfwd]

Yes - freshbot is your friend. But while you're updating the site, why not add new content? This is key to long-term good SERP anyhow.