Website freshness refers to how recently your site was updated. Search engines favour fresh content. Stale sites lose rankings, traffic, and customer trust.
Google's search algorithm includes a freshness signal. Pages that are regularly updated are considered more relevant, especially for topics where information changes frequently.
For users, a copyright date showing 2020 or a blog post from 2018 signals that the business may no longer be active. They wonder: are the phone numbers still valid? Is the business still open?
Adding new pages and blog posts is the most obvious signal, but not the only one. Updating existing pages with current information, refreshing product listings, updating team pages, and changing the copyright year in the footer all contribute to freshness.
Small changes to high-traffic pages � updating a phone number, adding a testimonial, refreshing a service description � are more impactful than adding thin new pages.
For most small business websites: review key pages (Home, About, Services) quarterly. Update the blog or news section monthly if possible. Refresh the copyright year annually. Update offers and promotions whenever they change.
A website that has not been updated in two years or more likely has outdated information, broken links, and security vulnerabilities. It needs a comprehensive refresh or rebuild.
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