How does Google’s freshness update impact SEO?

You might have heard about the relationship between fresh content and SEO regarding Google’s Freshness update. But how does the algorithm affect how your content ranks on the SERPs?

It is true that fresh content is an SEO ranking signal and affects your site’s performance over time. If the content on your website needs to be changed or updated often, it could eventually drift down in the search results. 

The Google freshness algorithm update was released in 2011, making time a relevant measure for search queries. The update came as a successor of the 2010 ‘Caffeine Update.’

Google’s latest update was intended to show more precise and responsive search results. The update enables Google to display the latest and most relevant content that is updated, trending, and regular. This plays a significant role in how a piece of content performs on the SERPs.

What is Google’s Freshness update, and how does it work?

Google Freshness Update refers to the Google Algorithm that was rolled out in 2011. The update shows the relevance of fresh content and its importance in search algorithms. Outdated content can affect your SEO Rankings and damage a SERP; the Freshness Update targets specific search results to display fresh content, improving its relevance. 

The update was aimed to show fresh and relevant content to the users and give such content a prominent edge in rankings. 

For example, queries about a sporting event or election polls could change frequently and differ daily, weekly, or monthly. Google Freshness Update impacted about 35% of all search results. It also changed SEO strategies as a whole. 

Google Freshness Update measures the freshness of a page concerning the volume of fresh content on a particular topic. Google determines the relevance of a piece of content by examining the frequency of content created on a specific topic. Therefore, highly-competitive sites with short-tail keywords must pay more attention to the relevance and freshness of their content to maintain their search engine rankings.

Fresh content vs. Evergreen content

Google’s freshness factor is crucial; however, don’t be fooled into thinking it is the most crucial factor. Not all content on your site needs to be included in buzzwords and hot topics. 

Evergreen content refers to content that does not go out of date. It could include guides, tutorials, or ‘how to’ blogs. 

While fresh content is the relevant content published during the peak trending moments, it may rake in more organic traffic. Still, solid evergreen content could generate higher traffic in the long run.

Google QDF and Freshness Update

Google’s QDF (Query Demands Freshness) updates three types of content that are more sensitive to freshness:

• Current events: for example demise of a world leader, an earthquake, a coup, etc.
• Frequent updates: for example, Google Algorithm Updates, technology updates, global warming, etc.
• Regularly recurring events: for example, quarterly profits of a company, results of a league game, etc.

When is fresh content most relevant?

Fresh content doesn’t need to always be equally important. There are types of searches that are sensitive to changes over time. 

Although frequently linked to news, there are many other searches where freshness is crucial. In addition to searches for forthcoming sporting events, this category may include searches for business trends, recipes, and prices.

Additionally, there are queries for which freshness is less critical. These are typically queries for evergreen content, which is articles that remain current for an extended time.

Importance of fresh content for SEO strategy

Regarding SEO, fresh content can be crucial, particularly if your content strategy emphasizes many time-sensitive subjects. To make sure you don’t lose your search rankings, it’s crucial to keep track of the changes in your industry and update your blogs and articles when significant changes happen. Your SEO keyword plan should include research to determine whether Google Freshness will impact the content you produce.

To prevent major setbacks during significant changes or events in your industry, using evergreen content in your SEO and content strategies is frequently recommended. You can balance your SEO and content strategies by using this content unaffected by Google Freshness.

How to optimize your site for Google Freshness Update?

Fortunately, optimizing your website and content for Google Freshness is not too difficult.

You may carry out the following:

• Update the content’s current timestamp.
• Post fresh material to your website.

While changing the publishing date has historically been a common SEO strategy, it should be done carefully.

Even though a minor modification can increase organic traffic and help your rankings, Google is fairly good at spotting when users attempt to get a leg up.

Google may penalize your site and lower its rating if it believes you are attempting to manipulate the system.

We advise adding fresh content whenever you alter the publication date of any piece of content.

By doing this, you’ll make sure Google is aware of how you’re enhancing the content on your website and making it more pertinent or helpful to visitors.

If you want to move some blog entries that are currently on page 2 of search engine results pages, sometimes this is all you need to do.

Wrapping Up

Keep in mind that Google considers a variety of content factors in addition to freshness when deciding how to rank a page.

Although publishing ultra-fresh content may result in a sudden spike in organic traffic, there are other ways to manipulate the algorithm to your benefit.

You will have the most excellent chance of ranking highly if you have a strong content strategy that combines consistently publishing trending content with genuine evergreen pieces.