Adding dynamic item to static page - good for SEO?

[scanlin]

We have a static page we want to rank for a competitive phrase.

Would it help, or would it make little to no difference, if we added a small dynamic item to the page so that each time the googlebot visited the page it wouldn't be 100% the same as the last time it visited?

The reason to do this would be because of the belief that Google likes pages that update once in a while.

The dynamic portion of the page wouldn't be as simple as a page counter, but it wouldn't be very elaborate either. A tiny portion of the page. Think of something like current temperature or current CPU utilization (it won't be that, but it will be a small updating number that is not incrementing like current time or a page counter).

Would that make any difference at all? (I know there will be responses that I should add real updating data to the page to make it dynamic; let's take that one off the table for right now --trying to see if there's something I can do that is simpler for now). Thanks.

[RyanKent]

If you wanted to try this approach, the easiest dynamic piece of content you can add to a page is the current date.

In my experience adding dynamic content of the nature you are describing would not offer any benefit at all.

I believe the above information fully responds to your question as presented. This is where I feel compelled to at least explain a bit further regarding the topic you did not wish to discuss, adding "real" data to the page.

I have spoken to people who have said "I read adding a blog to my site would help with my Google rankings. I added a blog and have not seen any benefit at all. Why not?"

Whether you are adding a blog, social networking or dynamic content the point is not the physical structure (i.e. blog software, social icons or in your case a piece of data which changes on a page). The focus is the authentic engagement with visitors.

For a blog, you are offering users the opportunity to generate fresh content by creating articles and responding to articles with comments. With dynamic content, if you link to "latest news", "latest comments", "twitter feed" and other information which is updated daily, then you are adding a real value for your users and Google will recognize that value.

Making a change just for the sake of making a change does not offer any real value, therefore you will not be rewarded with any noticeable benefit.