Why Online Dating Is So Important

Ok, that title could have went in more than one direction but, this post talks about dates on web pages, not trying to get laid.

Scenario: A new person comes online. This person is not internet savvy so they haven’t yet learned what to look for when searching for or reading info online. They are looking for info on how to set up your own online business.

After struggling through a few hundred pages of sales pitches, they finally find a page that outlines the basics for them so they print it out for reference.

Now, this page lists links and software tools that are (or were) essential to starting and running a profitable online business… in 1999 but, there was no indication on that page of when it was actually written!

This person now has woefully outdated information and eagerly absorbs that information, which forms a frame of reference in their mind - this is what I need to do to start an online business. They go forward from that point, searching for more information based on what they learned on that old web page and, essentially, they end up learning old techniques that nobody has used for years.

They learn about FFA pages and search engine spamming. They learn about email blasting and usenet spamming, etc. - the things that were somewhat accepted back in ‘99 but if done today would instantly ruin a person or company’s reputation and possibly even be against the law.

All because there was no date on that old page.

I love blog software and this is one of the reasons - the dates. The date and time the page was published is usually either in the URL itself or somewhere near the post or footer, which gives the reader a chronological reference as to when the information was published.

One of the things I’ve always hated about search engines is, up until recently, they would weight older pages online as being more relevant in the search results which in a lot of cases meant that when searching for something the searcher would get outdated information. I’m glad the search engines have largely ‘woken up’ and realized that not all things published online are ‘evergreen.’

Relevance in search results is not just about relevance to the word or phrases being searched for, it’s about time relevance as well.

So folks, anything you publish online from now on, please add a published date somewhere on the page, preferrably at the top and in plain view somewhere. In a few years, the info you published may no longer be relevant and some poor soul could end up being steered in the wrong direction.