Bad Blogging Practice : Not adding a datestamp to your posts

20 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

KC TAN | July 5th, 2007 at 6:53 am #

I will have to agree with you on this, kevin

Fresh content is all that matters for blogs and search engines too.
Cash Quests | July 5th, 2007 at 7:04 am #

I’ve found a blog that doesn’t use any dates on posts whatsoever. Check it out:

Cash Quests

Although some blogs may not use timestamps, the date is usually contained in the permalink of the post if the observant want to know when it was published.
Ramkarthik | July 5th, 2007 at 7:08 am #

Ya Kumiko is correct. What matters is you should see to that you don’ add words like yesterday or today in your blog post. Then people will quickly give a view to the date. Also the date, instead of never being added, can be added at the end of the post.
Kevin, I guess you read about it in Dailyblogtips. I read about it a few days ago there.
Darren | July 5th, 2007 at 7:13 am #

I can see what you’re saying - but disagree in part.

I think for blogs that cover newsy items (like the feedburner news) that a timestamp is very important. This is why I keep timestamps on ProBlogger and feel that the date adds value to the post as it puts it in context.

However many blogs have ‘timeless’ content. This content doesn’t date and as a result putting a date on it doesn’t really add any value to it to either the reader or the blog itself. In fact my own experience is that it can actually distract readers from good content because the date can make it seem dated or old (whether it is actually still relevant or not).

It is for this reason that I don’t have timestamps on Digital Photography School. The results of doing so is that I quite regularly find that older posts are treated by readers as very fresh. For example I’ve had year old posts make it to the front page of Digg - something I’ve never seen on any of my blogs with dates on them.

The only posts on DPS that I put dates on are my ’speedlinking’ type posts which I include a date in the title on.

I’ve not once in 18 months have a reader complain or comment on the lack of dates.
NetBusinessBlogger | July 5th, 2007 at 7:29 am #

@kumiko
Agree it or not - NOT everyone is smart enough to use his brain and check the permalinks.
Joey | July 5th, 2007 at 7:34 am #

I remember that post. It made some decent points but in the end I think if content is timeless then it doesn’t matter what the datestamp is.

Also, I hate to land on a new blog and have to dig hard to find out if it is an old or current post I am reading. It makes a difference in how I interpret the content.
Cash Quests | July 5th, 2007 at 7:46 am #

If I wrote a post about the AGLOCO scam and then when someone found it through a search engine and saw a January 2007 date, they may think it’s outdated and leave. Without a date, they’re still under the impression that it is still relevant - and they’re right!
Dave Starr --- ROI Guy | July 5th, 2007 at 7:50 am #

A good thought on this, Kevin. I read the idea in Daily Blog Tips and perhaps a few others and was giving it some serious thought.

But I hadn’t thought through as you did, what happens when I write about xyz.com doing something interesting and a year later they aren’t even on the Net? Also, I frequently come across info, usually on non-blog sites, with no date and it can be a real nuisance to check and see how current the data is. Was it posted last week or in 1999?

Just recently I was researching for a post on an immigration issue and found a site that seemed authoritative and detailed some legal facts that seemed a surprise to me. No wonder. Checking further I found the original data was posted in 1999 and Congress has changed that particular law twice since then … so overall, I think dates would really be a big help.
Kevin | July 5th, 2007 at 8:06 am #

Kumiko - thats a valid point however most people would just comment without checking for the date.

Darren - I should have perhaps clarified this more in my post. When I referred to ‘actual blogs’ I was referring to sites such as BloggingTips, ProBlogger, Engadget etc.

I said that “If you have created a website using blog software to display facts and information about a certain subject then a datestamp might be irrelevant however for actual
Darren | July 5th, 2007 at 8:13 am #

I see your difference of definition - however I’d still call DPS a blog. It posts things in chronological order, has comments, links to other blogs and is considered to be a blog by it’s readers, other bloggers and myself. The only difference is that it doesn’t have dates.

I guess it is about definition of a blog. Is a blog a blog if it doesn’t have dates? I would argue that it is but is what you’re saying that the dates make it a blog?
Kevin | July 5th, 2007 at 8:25 am #

No I’m not saying a blog needs to have dates to be a blog. Clearly, I could remove the dates here and it would still be a blog. However, a website which uses a blog script simply as a content management system might not need to have dates on posts if dates are not important to the text.

I do see what your saying though. I’ve quickly looked through some posts on the blog and most seem to be applicable at any time however I’m sure there will be at least one or two posts that might not be as relevant today. For example, if someone found a 2 year old post via google or whatever.

If a blog’s post are as relevant today as they were a year ago then clearly a datestamp isn’t too important.
David Hinchliffe | July 5th, 2007 at 12:56 pm #

I’m trying out no dates on the blog after the current 30 posts.

I try and make my content as timeless as possible. Most posts don’t date as I rarely post any news. I feel it’s benefical to those timeless posts to not have a date attached (ie. to stop people think they are dated because the post is 6 months old when the content is as fresh as it was when it was written).

I admit it’s a difficult jugling act for the few times I do post time relevant articles.
Tay | July 5th, 2007 at 5:28 pm #

I do agree with you. I often always look at the date because I just want to know how recent the post was, especially if it contains informative news. If it is a timeless blog, like you said, for example a blog that contains jokes or quotes or information, then I think it’s okay to leave the date off. But a lot of the time I find myself checking when the certain post was written.
GoddessCarlie | July 5th, 2007 at 8:55 pm #

I’m with Darren on this. Some of my posts are time sensitive, so I put the time frame in the title or on the post, for example : Who’s Subbing What: Summer 2007. However, most of my posts are timeless so I don’t find the date necessary. However, I do keep the dates in the comments so that people know they shouldn’t ask someone a question from the comments when it was written six months ago.

Sometimes I do look at dates and if it is from a long time ago I often don’t read it (depending on the subject). I think there are definite pluses to removing the date.

I think this post could have been more rounded if you had posted the plus side of both but still shown how time stamps are more of a positive.
Daniel Scocco | July 6th, 2007 at 6:10 am #

I agree with Darren, there is no right answer here, some blogs will do well with timestamp (maybe the majority) but others will do better without the timestamp.

We discussed this extensively here:
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/should-we-remove-the-timestamp/

Apart from DPS blog, which is very successful and does not run dates, you also have freelanceswitch.com and doshdosh.com.
Kevin | July 6th, 2007 at 6:46 am #

Daniel - I definately think that removing the timestamp from DailyBlogTips would be a bad idea as a lot of news posts etc will be out of date in the future. Darren made a good point about his blog but I still believe you should only remove the timestamp if your posts are as relevant in a years time as they are now
Blogs Do Make Money | July 6th, 2007 at 4:35 pm #

I believe in the old school of using timestamps, probably due to the nature of my blogs. But this post has certainly given me a thought or two about the possibility of not using time stamp on certain posts on my blogs. Having said that, the author will need to be very certain that the post actually is timeless rather than “thinking” that it is timeless at the point of time it was written. Else, he/she might lose credibility, unless of course he/she constantly reviews and keeps track of his old posts which is pretty tedious work.
cooliojones | July 7th, 2007 at 8:09 pm #

Your blog could be history one day (good history). Just think of what history would be without dates and times? What would be the point? The websites posted above are great sources for this debate.

Here’s a question: do you think time/date stamps make us believe that what was posted is outdated material? Kinda like an illusion?
Yogesh | July 9th, 2007 at 9:11 pm #

The only reason I don’t like timestamps in URLs is due to the fact it makes the URLs longer.