Comments on: The Problem of Dates on Blogs

By: Giving Underperforming Posts a Second Chance with Updates

Giving Underperforming Posts a Second Chance with Updates — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:01:41 +0000

[...] works on DPS is that I don’t time stamp my posts. I’ve written more on this practice previously (it’s something that will again suit evergreen timeless content more than blogs that are [...]

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 01:46:29 +0000

I combat date snobs in two ways: I have a weekly post titled “This week on jkOnTheRun” that just has post titles from the week, I use only the ones with the most comments submitted. Then, once a year I do a similar post that lists the 10 or 15 top posts of all time complete with a brief summary of the post. I find that even frequent visitors appreciate these posts and they always restimulate commentary. It works for me, anyway.

By: Rico

Rico — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 08:44:06 +0000

I agree with everyone here (listing will make this comment unnecessarily long, so sorry) who’ve said that dates are important. When the first blogs reach 10 years old, dates will help future readers put the posts, as you said Darren, into context.

I’ve always believed that the best information can be timeless; what works before can work today. Like Copyblogger’s post on Aristotle (http://www.copyblogger.com/blogging-tips/). We should also take a long-term view here. By providing dates, our ancestors will have a better record of how human thought has developed over the years. Something like that. :)

By: Part Time Entrepreneur

Part Time Entrepreneur — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 21:38:02 +0000

I’m a date snob… and i didn’t even know it.

Thanks for making me realise what i have always done subconciously!

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:50:13 +0000

Darren, I love the new blog. For me it looks more like a regular website than a blog, that is being run on WP. Unless you are providing some kind of timeline like what blogs were originally created to be made as, aka “online diaries” I really don’t think it is necessary to provide dates. The distinction between blogs and websites has really started to blur recently.

By: bulut

bulut — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 12:19:37 +0000

I’ve a music blog,so dates are very important for me because i write about old and new records at same time so how can they know while I’m posting about a 80s album it’s new.

But i think that i’m going to size the dates to small.Because they make bad appearance at top of my posts.

By: Impressive For Sure

Impressive For Sure — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:08:11 +0000

I almost always check for the date. I hate older things.

By: j. brotherlove

j. brotherlove — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 03:05:23 +0000

Darren makes good points about how bloggers percieve newer content as “better”. These reasons are why I removed dates from my blog entries two years ago. I don’t use dates in my urls either. I’ve been pleased with the results.

By: Aaron Brazell

Aaron Brazell — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 01:17:07 +0000

With a little strategic coding, you could make dates disappear when folks come from search engines. Might be useful, but might also not be….

By: The Patri0t

The Patri0t — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:57:31 +0000

I think a Blog without dates is not so good. I was using this theme recently which did not show, I don’t know why, the date on which article was published. I searched around and found a new cool way of showing date. Used it. I got sad at the fact that the tutorial was written a year ago and that Blog only had 3 entries. Nothing after those!

So where was I. I think showing date is very important. You have hidden the dates from main entries but they come in the address bar once article is clicked. It really does not matter to me. An article 3 years ago, if good is worth more than the useless one posted a day ago.

:-)

By: Michele

Michele — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:46:08 +0000

It depends on the topic.
Configuring postfix or apache hasn’t changed that much in the last couple of years :)

By: Tim Bennett

Tim Bennett — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:23:05 +0000

When this blog came through on my RSS reader it reminded me I had an unfinished blog post that I promptly completed and punlished.

http://www.drquincy.com/personal/blog/permalink/isitablogorisitanarticle/

I touch on the using the dates on blogs to work with timesless articles.

By: prlinkbiz

prlinkbiz — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:44:55 +0000

Hey! My partner in crime over at NLL commented here today too! lol (Hi K!)
It’s funny timing for the topic because one of my clients wants the dates off her blog, and I don’t think for her blog it really matters. I personally like dates. I guess I’m a date freak. lol

By: pcunix

pcunix — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 19:01:57 +0000

Funny, because I never used to date my posts and just started doing so a few days ago :-)

By: bernard

bernard — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:38:32 +0000

Interesting post, I was thinking about this a few days ago as well… I am to start a new blog with guest writers (known musicians, producers etc) who contribute and the aim of the blog is being timeless so I have taken the decision to ommit the dates. The fact that the blog will be part of a bigger news site will be interesting in order to see how people will react on these… I see that older news posts rarely get comments posted after a few weeks.

By: Ray Dotson

Ray Dotson — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:55:47 +0000

I’m probably in the camp of the date snobs. A recently dated blog entry tells you the owner is actively maintaining the site at the very least. I also agree that the more recent information does tend to be the most relevant.

I do quite often find older postings on other blogs to be extremely useful as long as the information isn’t outdated. However, I don’t see a whole lot of activity on the older postings on my own blog after a couple of weeks. I’m still pretty small time, though…

By: Hsien Lei

Hsien Lei — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:55:01 +0000

I’m a date snob in a different way. If I don’t see a date, I often move on because I have no way of assessing the context and relevance of a particular post or statement.

It is imperative that science and health blogs have dates on them because developments advance so rapidly. Removing the dates seems almost like deception and a way of tricking readers.

By: HART (1-800-HART)

HART (1-800-HART) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:37:38 +0000

For my own blogs – The most important thing for me to do first when I select a template .. is to remove the TIME STAMP of the posting if it’s there. People don’t have to know that I actually posted an article in the middle of the night or in the middle of the work day or during suppertime or while I was on the toilet.

It has nothing to do with snobbishness .. but more embarrassment to have the world see all the weird times that I am posting and surfing the internet – I’m not a problogger and have a day job, but spend as much time online as you guys do :p

By: Maricar

Maricar — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:36:04 +0000

Good point, Darren.
There’s probably not a right or wrong way about this. It depends on the blog, and the purpose of the blog. I have a blog (www.papergoodness.com) where I talk about new papercraft products. For this, it’s important to have a date to know what’s new when. For blogs that I read, I like being able to see the dates, mostly.

On a related note, what about the time on a post? Now, there, I’m more “snobbish”. Don’t see the point really in seeing the exact hour and minute a post was written.

By: Brian Lipton

Brian Lipton — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:13:15 +0000

I completely agree with you. Dates are a disadvantage. EXCEPT. Having the ‘2006′ in the links have helped me with some Search Engines because some people type things in search engines like: blog help 2006.

Cheers,

Brian