Updating sites for SEs

Can you keep a static site "fresh" with new modification dates?

[Deepcreek]

I know that search engines favor sites with fresh content. Yet, many brochure sites rarely need updating. So to keep these sites "fresh", some people refresh their html files with a "save as". Just curious... is this an effective practice, or a waste of time?

[hunderdown]

Not as effective as adding new content, that's for sure.

You could test it pretty easily. I recently stuck a piece of frame-breaking code in every page on my site. In some cases, that was the first time the pages had been modified in 4 or 5 years! And all of a sudden, I had all-fresh pages.

Had no impact on referrals from Google that I could see. Maybe it did with other SEs, but I don't get enough traffic from them for anything less than a doubling of traffic to be obvious.

On the other hand, I got a definite jump in traffic from a site redesign. The main section of the site had a huge list of pages linked to from it, and it was hard to find stuff by browsing. I created sub-category pages, listed them on the section page, and no more than 20 articles each on the sub-categories. Traffic up overall about 30% almost immediately, and it's stayed up ever since.

Add new content. If you think you've covered the subject, you haven't. Invite questions from visitors and post a weekly question with your thoughtful answer, then archive the pages. One may even turn into a new article. Some new content weekly or even monthly will at least get the search engines visiting regularly.

[longen]

I would expect the SE's can work out from the keyword density, and other factors, whether it is fresh content or not.