A reader asked me recently about using timestamps on blogs, as she’s redesigning hers and wondered if she should use them or not in her new design. It’s a question I get asked fairly often so I’ve dedicated today’s ProBlogger podcast to sharing with you the pros and cons of blog timestamps and whether I think they should be included or left off.
Reader Bernadette also noted that I use timestamps here on ProBlogger.net, but not on my main blog, Digital Photography School. There are a few reasons for that: the blogging industry is moving fast, and I’ve had this blog for so many years now that I want to signal to readers when the posts were published so they can see whether the information is still relevant for today, and also that if the information isn’t quite relevant, they can see that I wrote it early in my blogging journey. It helps them see the context around the content.
For Digital Photography School, I’ve never used timestamps and that’s because the posts there aren’t newsy – they’re timeless, evergreen posts that will always be useful. Putting a date on these posts might cause readers to assume that because they weren’t written recently that they will be behind the times, which often isn’t the case. A date in this instance would be a distraction and because it’s not relevant to the post itself, I leave it off.
So in short, my theory is that date stamps either add to or take away from your blog. In this episode I discuss why you should and also why you shouldn’t include them on your content, and three options for what to do on your blog for when a black and white decision isn’t so easy.
You can listen below, or on iTunes, and find the show notes here.
Little annoys me more than trying to find information on a site without timestamps and eventually realizing through wasted time that the page was painfully out of date. It’s actually become part of my internal junk filter; in general I’ve begun eschewing sites that don’t have dates. And while we’re on the subject, do “casual” timestamps (“posted four years three months ago”) actually serve any good purpose?
Interesting to consider – I would have never thought to not have timestamps in there, for the exact reason Ben mentioned in an earlier comment. I personally prefer more recent posts, especially for industry topics or technical help. Everything changes so frequently, even if you think you’ve got great evergreen content, chances are at some point you’ll need to update it.
So keep the timestamp – and keep making new content!
As I am often using the web to lookup technical, especially IT, information, the lack of datestamps can be a serious irritation, so I would agree with Ben in that context.
In terms of my own site, I have content which in some cases needs a timestamp, but in others is essentially timeless. As something of a learner at this time, I have written (pen & paper) travel notes which need to become posts, but do I post them under today’s date, when the trip was a year ago, or do I post them under the correct date, thus burying them in the blog timeline, and depend on promotion to get them visible?
My blog uses time stamp and I always wondered if it really mattered to the search engines. Truth be told, Google knows when you published your original post. Would I like to remove it, probably in the future.
Here’s the bottom line…
If you have frequently updated content, you’d be crazy not to post your dates.
If however, you don’t frequently update your content, you’d be crazy to show them. (Lol).
Just my humble $.02, wish you the best.
Thanks a lot for solving my confusion about timestamps. I am gonna read couple of more articles.
Hi Darren,
Actually I am running website in which job site is most important for me. So I use time stamps on it because user always look up latest job according to date. So it is very important for those who are running site like me.
Any way thanks Darren for sharing Pros and Cons of using time Stamps on blog.
Regards:
Areesha Noor
Hi Darren,
One of the most debated topic. Timestamp should be displayed on the blog so that the readers will be aware of the time on which they are published. Instead of removing the date completely, they can use “last updated on” setting.