Does showing the date published for an article in the SERPS help or hurt click-through rate?
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Does showing the date published for an article in the SERPS help or hurt click-through rate?
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It will if its a too old article say like 1 yr old.
But it also depends on the article. some articles are ever green and even its old it is still valuable.
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WebService,
Hopefully, you realize this is going to be a question with opinions; IMO, it likely has minimal effect on the click through rate. What I have always believed (and we typically show the date on most of our own/client posts) is when someone lands on something thinking they are getting the query answered and they learn that the info is 3 months or 3 years old depending on the topic, they leave. Personally, it annoys me that people are not being "straight" with me when I go to something and discover it is dated information. Or, conversely, when I am trying to find the earliest iteration of some news, to not be able to due to people not showing dates.
This morning I saw a news story of interest on CCN online. I was trying to find its original pub date and it took 5 minutes to find a local news station that broke the story 29 days ago. Major news sites weren't showing ) or readily showing that date.
So, I would put it.
Good luck,
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