Any way to display a "last modified" date?

  • Unknown's avatar
    cakeisaliegaming · Member ·

    Hi. Is there a way (without upgrading to the business plan and installing a plugin) to display a “last modified” date on WordPress posts?

    I host a number of guides on my WordPress.com site that I regularly update (eg https://thecakeisaliegaming.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/getting-started-in-elite-dangerous-a-guide/) but the publication date makes these posts appear very out of date. I suspect that this also hurts the visibility of my guides in SERPs.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    The only way to display the Last Modified date is if your theme included that information, and no theme on WordPress.com that I know of does. So you either need custom PHP code or create a child theme to make the theme display that info, or you’ll need a plugin, all of which is only possible on the Business Plan on WordPress.com.

    Even if it did display that date, that wouldn’t help for SEO – we ping search engines each time you publish a new post so they can come and index that post, but we don’t ping them for updates to existing posts, so there’s nothing letting search engines know they need to update their data on the post. Merely displaying a date isn’t going to do that.

    Additionally, updating an existing post in this way does not send any notification to your site followers that there has been a change, so in general it’s not something I’d recommend. Updating old posts in this way is essentially a way to make sure that only you know about the updates :)

    A better practice is to publish a new post with your updates, linking back to the original posts. That way subscribers and people finding your site via search engines will find the new content, which in turn will drive traffic back to the original posts, which will in turn elevate their ranking in search results as well.

    You can also then add a note to the original post linking back to the newer one, mentioning there has been some updates. That way someone who does land on the older post can also reach the most recent information.

  • Unknown's avatar
    cakeisaliegaming · Member ·

    Thanks for the response, that’s good to know.

    I’ve essentially already been doing what you suggest in the last couple of paragraphs :D

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