Ever notice that when you’re diligently searching the web for an answer to some pressing question you keep finding sites that look like possible candidates only to find that the post you are looking at was published 5 years ago? This is especially a real bug-a-boo with technology information.

For Google’s SE algorithm “age of domain” definitely plays a role in determining what shows up at the top. But, aging content?  Hey… the things change especially in fast-paced areas like SEO, web design and other web related stuff. An article from 4 years ago is rarely relevant to now.

There has been talk about filtering older content somehow, so now (of course) I see a trend of people leaving the date of publication off their blogs. That’s just stupid. What possible reason would you want to hide this from your real human visitors. Do you want to trick them? Are you afraid that Google will depreciate your website because the content on it is old? So lets hide the date, or better yet change the date to a more current date so Google won’t hurt us! Really not smart. People who come to your site will get annoyed by your old info and even more so by you masking the actual date it was written.

Here’s a little secret… The search engines know when your content was first indexed no matter what you do with the date on your site. Changing or hiding it only does so for the human users of your site. So.. the whole idea is dumb.

So, I hope there is a filter to start archiving the old crap and showing me more recent info first. Websites just need to keep their content fresh and purge out their old out-dated garbage. The web would be a better place.