changing the year in titles

year of article, changing the year

[carlweitz]

Hi!
So, should I or should not change the dates in my article's title from 2022 to 2023? I know, if I make DRASTIC changes to my post then I can probably change the year, but if the changes are minimal for about 200 words, is it okay to add the year of 2023, or keep it 2022? Any advice?

[robzilla]

If someone includes the current year in their query, they're looking for very recent, up-to-date content that include the latest developments, products, science or whatever. If you've updated your content accordingly, i.e. you meet their expectations, then of course it's perfectly fine to adjust the title. If not, then it's a form of manipulation. Word count, or how drastic the changes are, is irrelevant, just make sure you meet users' expectations.

[ErrlyBird]

You said it nicely in your post, drastic changes are best if changing the year. Mueller recently discussed this as the new year approaches. Idk how much is considered drastic though, 200 words sounds like a decent change, but how long is the article, and how much has changed on your topic over the year? Just do what's most helpful to users.

[carlweitz]

Thank you @robzilla & @ErrlyBird for your prompt replies! I have a blog about makeup tutorials and hairstyles. I would not say there are lots of changes going on in trends, but for instance, I have a blog post about cat-eye make-up or about bob haircuts. If I add year 2023 to these kinds of blog posts, does it mean I manipulate with google search?

[robzilla]

If your blog posts are up on the latest trends then no you're not manipulating anything. Particularly with hairstyles people will be adding the year to find the latest trends; if you cover those then no problem. Cat-eye make-up is probably not so sensitive to trends, so it might not make much sense to add 2023 to that. Still, if you do, it might have a positive effect on your CTR, I'd call that minor manipulation ;-) In that case you're suggesting that the cat-eye make-up styles are recent but you may not be able to back that up on the page. What I meant earlier by manipulation would be, for example, changing the year 2023 when the hairstyles on the page are clearly more 2020, i.e. you just change the year every year to keep getting that traffic.

[carlweitz]

Thank you @robzilla for the explanation! :)

[engine]

BTW, Google's John Mueller has indicated more than once that tweaking the date is not advisable.

Is there significantly new content? Then update the dates. Is there no significantly new content? Then don't update the dates. We see a lot of spam & low-quality content that just arbitrarily updates dates ("Best fax machine for 2023"), it's pretty obvious & embarassing.

[twitter.com...]

[EditorialGuy]

I think common sense goes a long way.

Example: My health-insurance company publishes a drug formulary each year, and the document has a date ("2022," "2023," or whatever). As a customer, I don't care whether the content has been tweaked: What matters to me is whether the formulary is accurate for the current year. So even if only a few drugs have changed since 2022 (or none have changed changed at all), seeing "2023" on the document tells me that I can rely on the information in the document.

The same would apply to a directory of campgrounds in Widgetonia state parks or an article on bus fares in Whatsitville. One minor change can be meaningful if the park that John Doe wants to visit is closed for maintenance or if the standard bus fare has gone from $1 to $1.25 and the transit agency demands exact change.

Obviously, there are grey areas. What about a directory of counties in Idaho, or state capitals in the U.S.? Normally it wouldn't make sense to slap "2023" on such a list. But if the list includes information that does change (such as county populations, or contact information for state governments), then "2023" might be a useful addition to the page title.

[mack]

I would only change the date if you have made changes to the article to include all the very latest up-to-date information on the topic. Almost like a full redraft and refresh of the article.

Mack.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Now if only they'd do something about Youtube videos.

"Best widgets of 2023 - reviewed - WOW DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?!?"

When you click and start listening it's "In this video we're going to review the best.... of 2020"

Good thing you can tell the video is spam junk from the title.

[EditorialGuy]

Just use editorial judgment. Instead of trying to manipulate the search engine, think about what makes sense for the user.

[tangor]

If the page has changed by 10%-20% or more, then update the date. Else, don't. There is value in having a back catalogue of ARCHIVES where users can look back through and see for themselves what has changed, year to year...

On longer articles, usually "evergreen" if significant updates have been made then show a "Updated 2023" without changing the Copyright date.

Also consider that when looking at the serps anything that has "best of current year" is usually spam and ignored by the average user... thus having the year in the title might put some folks off from even visiting.

[MrSavage]

So let me get this straight. The advice is to do what's best for the user. So if I have a book about the best 2022 movie releases, I shouldn't use "2022" in the title because that's spam or might be viewed by spam by searchers. That's dumb advice on so many levels. Does it really work this way? I can't call my page what it is because of some idiotic guidance or Google spam filter? If that's what my f'ing article is about, what the F can't I title the page that? I lose ranking in Google because spammers use dates in titles? What a completely f'ed up system and advice here. How many times have we been told not to do something even though it's best for our users, but it might be considered spammy or bad for a user experience when in fact it's helpful? I would also say to anyone claiming that putting a date or year in a title is lacking grey matter. It's like advising people to not use keywords because it's spam. So go ahead and talk about green widgets, but don't call them green widgets because that will look spammy. I say GTFO. It's insane to me that there are webmasters who are so confined that they think this way. No freedom on the internet? Use a date in the title and be banished as spam? If it's ignored by the average user, where is your source for that comment? If it is ignored, then that means Google is doing a S job at filtering out the low quality spam. In fact if that is the user behavior then it's Google serving up trash results. Not the other way around.

Edit: quote: Google has published "A Year in Search 2022"

[robzilla]

So let me get this straight. The advice is to do what's best for the user. So if I have a book about the best 2022 movie releases, I shouldn't use "2022" in the title because that's spam or might be viewed by spam by searchers. That's dumb advice on so many levels.

I don't think you got it straight there. Actually, not sure what you're responding to since that's not the advice that was given here (or by Google), unless you're taking it out of context. Noone would argue that including 2022 in the title of a page about the best 2022 movie releases might look spammy.

[tangor]

No one is talking about "books". A Book Review on the web would include the book's title, and if that title was "best widgets of 2022", that's the title of the object under review.

Changing dates just to chase seo is pretty much useless if the pages are NOT actually being updated with new material, g ain't stupid. Neither are the rest of the SEs.

After users go through a half dozen (spam) sites in the serps with "best", et al. titles they generally opt to ignore those in the future.

That being said, one should always title their pages properly.

The OP's original question was:

So, should I or should not change the dates in my article's title from 2022 to 2023? I know, if I make DRASTIC changes to my post then I can probably change the year, but if the changes are minimal for about 200 words, is it okay to add the year of 2023, or keep it 2022? Any advice?

[lucy24]

Is there significantly new content? Then update the dates. Is there no significantly new content? Then don't update the dates.

It saddens me that it was felt necessary to SAY this. Makes me think of an article I once read, looking at various major corporations' internal policy manuals. Most ran to hundreds of pages. But one company--whose name I sadly don't remember--had a single page: “Use your own best judgment at all times.”

[tangor]

There's one final thought on year dates in titles:

The article is DATED.

If there is no date IN THE TITLE, that page becomes "evergreen" and will NOT be ignored simply because it is either "this year" or "that year".

[EditorialGuy]

If there is no date IN THE TITLE, that page becomes "evergreen" and will NOT be ignored simply because it is either "this year" or "that year".

Evergreen content can benefit from a date, too, under two circumstances:

1) The date is legitimate (i.e., it suggests that the page, article, section, etc. is up to date for the current year or other time period); and...

2) The date is relevant to the user's need.

For example, an academic guide to the history, architecture, and art of Widgetberg's churches may not be updated often (if at all), so a date in the title wouldn't be relevant or useful to the searcher.

BUT, a tourist guide to the churches of Widgetberg (with hours, prices, etc.) might well benefit from a title like "Churches of Widgetberg - 2023" because users are likely to be interested in up-to-date tourist information.

Ditto for things like school-year calendars: If I'm the parent of an elementary-school pupil who wants to know when spring break is next year (so I can plan our family vacation), I want to know that the calendar is for 2023 even if only a tiny percentage of the text (i.e., dates) has changed.

[tangor]

Many Documents are dated with a copyright notice which is not in the title. Searchers looking for new content (like me) often use that date for most recent. Not arguing that dates in titles can't be useful, just commented on the SEO ploy of renaming last year's date as this year's date is problematic in several different ways.

[robzilla]

Here's a good example of what you probably shouldn't be doing: [imgur.com...]

Clearly that's manipulative. The page was last updated in November of 2022 but purports to already have the list of best psychology books of 2023. Among those books, as you can tell from the snippet, is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman -- first published in 2011.

Unfortunately, while I say that's what you probably shouldn't be doing, it seems to be working for that site.

[EditorialGuy]

Not arguing that dates in titles can't be useful, just commented on the SEO ploy of renaming last year's date as this year's date is problematic in several different ways.

Exactly. We'd see a lot less teeth-gnashing about SEO failures if more people used common-sense editorial judgment.

Does the date provide useful information to the reader, or is it just an SEO ploy? It shouldn't be that hard to know the answer to that question when deciding whether or not to append a date to a page title.

[MrSavage]

A lot of nonsensical debate. This has become a situation where advice from experts goes against common sense, natural, best for reader/searcher approach to content creation. It's why I'm giving a big middle finger to most of this. I would rather die on the hill than bow to some garbage about why I can't use article keywords (what the f'ing article is talking about) in the title because it might be considered spammy by Google. That's like saying to authors, don't title your book too closely to the actual subject because that's at risk of being spammy and nobody will buy it. It's a dumb as this. You can't use too many of this word and you shouldn't really use that word in your title because Google might not like it. Some of you don't mind selling your souls and letting the tail wag the dog. The fact is Google doesn't create any content. We do. If I'm talking about green widgets from 2022 then I'm going to f'ing title the page that and I'm going to talk freely about f'ing green widgets from 2022 in my article because that's what it's f'ing about. People here want to dispute that logic and advise me against doing the "normal" human thing like speaking freely about my f'ing article topic? In closing? Filter this.

Edit: Happy holidays to everyone!

[robzilla]

People here want to dispute that logic

Once again, nobody is doing that, you're misreading it all and getting worked up over nothing.