Recently, a significantly familiar doubt about do’s and don’t of SEO was discussed by John Mueller, Google’s Search Advocate. This article summarizes the conversation between an SEO professional and Mueller. In this article, we will be discussing the SEO impact of dates in title tags. Before diving into the discussion, let us understand the concept of SEO in brief.
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What is SEO?
SEO means optimizing websites to rank higher on Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). We use SEO techniques to optimize blog content and websites based on quality to satisfy consumers’ needs organically.
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In a recent Google Search Central SEO meeting, Mueller discussed an important topic raised by the abovementioned SEO professional. The professional working on a currency reporting website asked if adding the publishing date on title tags affects SEO. He further mentioned the everyday content production to report the changes in currency values and the analysis behind the change.
According to Mueller, adding dates in the title tags does not impact SEO. The date on the title tags is justifiable for currency change articles as they are similar to news articles.
The date in title tags in news articles is helpful for the consumers as it enhances trust among them. But Google has a different way of determining publishing dates.
Google tries to figure out the primary date of news articles when reading the news items. It checks the mentions and the date of the page and makes it easier to identify. But the publishing date on web page title tags barely has any positive or negative impact on SEO.
Additionally, changing page tags also do not have an impact on SEO. Click here, to know more.
Further, a follower on Twitter asked if he could change the dates of existing blogs so that the blog ranks higher on SERP. Mueller replied that he should add dates only when he publishes anything new or when there has been a significant change to the material. Adding dates without any change in the content would just be noisy and useless.
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Conclusion
Writing date in the title tag of a web page does not affect SEO. The date can be beneficial to provide a good reading experience, especially for news or similar articles.
But the date on the web page title tag is not too essential. Hence, before adding the date to title tags, check if it contributes to your consumer experience or not. If it does, add it; if not, then no need.
Also, add dates in the title tags only when you make any changes in the context or upload a new blog. Otherwise, adding dates in existing blogs is useless without any modifications. It would not affect SEO in any way.