Advice needed | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Hi all,

Daisy from Add-vodka and I run a lifestyle/fashion blog called "CHIC DARLING" and we need your opinion on whether removing the dates from a layout such as that is a good idea.

We've been going back and forth, but realize that tapping into a expert group like you is the best idea.

Any direction would fantastic.

- M

Thanks, Saverocity. I built the site myself, so the labour was free ;)

I get annoyed when I go to a page and there's no way to tell when it was written.  So I would always vote to keep the dates there.

I removed dates. My thinking… when someone finds an article via search (most of my traffic), they won't click off if the article is older. The dashboard still has the dates, just not visible to the reader.

I like it when blogs/websites keep the dates.

Well I suppose there are two types of blog posts :

1. All time post

2. Time based post

All time posts are those which would remain on the blog forever without any need to update, topics such as "How to write blog content" or "What is blog" are considered all time posts as it would never change

Time based posts are those which would require update with time such as SEO techniques or apps. With the time say 1 year down the line there would be new SEO techniques and earlier ones won't be applicable. In case of apps, there would be new updated app with new features

Now what happens if you remove the date from time based posts. The reader would read the old post which contains old techniques and he may try to apply those and in case of SEO it may not work as there would be new algorithms

You can't update books or any other print medium but you can update blogs which is the best beauty of blogs. One has a chance to update the old post with latest information

Having said all of the above, best thing to display on the blog post is Modified date or Last updated date so that the reader knows when was the post last updated and find out the freshness of the content and that is what we follow on our blog Digitalspikes.com

I know many blogs which have removed the date and reasons being :

• Hard to get comments from people if the content is old especially when one sees the date
• Others would think twice before giving link back or mention to older content, everyone wants fresh content
• Older posts are less attractive than fresh content. Often people may skip to read after reviewing the time stamp

I can't comment whether removing the date from blog post is ethical or unethical as every blogger has his own perspective.

Answers to all of the above points is adding a modified or last updated date to the blog post. There are inbuilt parameters and functions available in wordpress which can be used to show last modified date :

http://codex.wordpress.org/Fun…..ified_date

Thanks and Regards,

Rita P

I fully agree with Marissa, What may work for one blog may not work for others as it depends on your blog niche and audience. So based on your test and trials you need to decide accordingly what is best suited for you and turn it on or off based on what works for you

Thanks and Regards,

 Rita P

Pauline said:

If a reader comes back, date or no date, he'll see if there is no new content. Posting once a month or less would probably encourage people to leave if they saw the dates, otherwise I'd say keep them.

Great point!

We post 1-2 daily as there are tons of trends/ lines/products etc. Those things are time sensitive. Things like "valentines day recipes, and fall trends etc" can be evergreen.

Dates will be kept on for now. Thank you for the feedback, everyone!