Let's take this from the point of view of a normal person who is just wading around the internet looking for something to read on a specific subject.  We'll call this guy Bob. Bob heads over to Yahoo (It could be Google or some other search engine) and types in 'how to make waffles'.  Here's what he sees:


Nothing too earth shattering here. Now take a look at what Bob might see if he did a blog search on the same topic.  Let's use Google Blog Search this time...


Again, there's nothing particularly eyebrow-raising about this image. However, there is one difference there that the astute reader will notice - specifically, the second image has dates and times while the first does not. Where am I going with this?  Well, let's take a look at a little bit of the first page for the top result in both engines.



Hmmm...No date...


And this one has a date... Big deal you say?  What is the point I'm trying to make?

Actually it's pretty simple.  As bloggers, we tend to always date things and by doing so we build in planned obsolescence.  As soon as we've written any type of content, we publish it along with a time stamp. Along comes Bob a couple months later and sees the date and he thinks, "Gee, this was written a few months ago.  It isn't up to date anymore.  Perhaps I should go elsewhere!"

Bob might not be thinking it consciously but I'll guarantee you it's a thought that has floated in the back of his mind somewhere, sometime! Now, before you write me off totally, keep in mind that I'm not saying that you should never date your articles.  What I am saying, however, is that you should make sure that those that aren't going to be irrelevant in a month or two won't be.

I'm going to stand by what I say and remove the date from my posts....how about you?

G-Man