Updating Publishing Date on Blog Posts

[wearehappymedia]

Hi,

We have been optimising and re-sharing old blogs posts from our feed. If we were to change the date of publishing on the posts in order to bring them to the top of our feed, would this have any negative impacts on the posts' metadata?

Thanks!

[mediawyse]

Short answer is no, it would not have a negative effect.

The big issue is this: WILL THE URL CHANGE if you update and republish? Hopefully, you have a FLAT URL STRUCTURE that doesn't have dates in the URL. That way you can update your best content (maybe you change the pictures, maybe you research and update the post with new information, maybe the UX has been improved) but publish at the SAME URL.

Doing this is clearly very important for SEO purposes -- you don't "break" URLs and you allow the earned authority of the post to stay intact while also republishing and generating new "pings" to Google to take advantage of Freshness boosts.

Google wants you to update and republish. But you need to update and republish WHEN YOU HAVE IMPROVED the content for the reader. And that's what is important here. That's what we are talking about when you hear about the topic of "Evergreen Content." It's not that the content itself never expires, it's that you have been a good gatekeeper of the content and when it can be updated with fresher, more current information, you have done so with the clear interests of the user in mind.

So with regards to your question, the important point is this: are you updating the date just to keep re-featuring content that you haven't actually made UX changes too? Or are you updating and republishing when you've actually IMPROVED the original content for the reader? If it's the former, personally, this is really a waste of time. But if it's the latter and you have monitored the content and made improvements, then republishing is absolutely the way to go.

Within your Google Search Console make sure to avail yourself of the "Search Queries" report. Sort that by both impressions and clicks. If you see content from the last 28 days or longer that has not accumulated any clicks that's a clear sign that Google "didn't like that content" much. Once you sort for seasonal shifts, use that report to spot the content that didn't connect the first time and then update and republish. That's where you will get the most "bang for the buck" in this area.

Pro Tip: use the tool www.answerthepublic.com to find questions users are asking around the root keywords of your posts and then seek to ask and answer some of those questions in your content. Doing this will promote more "complete" content pieces that Google will eat up and rank accordingly.

Good luck! Hope this was helpful.