Do "last updated" lines keep websites current?

[kerer99]

I had a debate with a coworker the other day about updating the "last updated" date on webpages. Many webmasters include this line at the bottom of their websites as a tactic to keep their websites "current". The rationale behind this is that because a few characters on a webpage have been changed, the site is considered to have fresh content. Also, according to some, search engines look for the "last updated" line on websites and use this date as an indicator of when a site has indeed been updated. Of course, these theories do not apply to automated scripts.

Personally I don't believe that search engines are that smart (or stupid for that matter) to understand or care about what the "last updated" line means. It seems foolish to me to think that changes one character on a page keeps your content fresh.

Any thoughts? I'd love for someone to prove me wrong - I'd immediately go ahead and add this line to all my sites!

[KeithO]

Underestimate the power of the spiders you do. Hmmmmm. Query the server log the spiders do. mmhmmm yes.

[kerer99]

*BUMP*!

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[jawn_tech]

I would have to echo Yoda. The only way to test for sure is watch the bots traffic, and watch for spikes when the site is updated. From anything I've ever seen, "last updated on" is only text to a spider. It's content, no? When content changes, it changes.

Do bots keep track of change regarding the percentage of the content? That fact could be proprietary. But again, watch the bot traffic and see what changes make them move more frequently.

Good bump usage, btw. Great way to keep a thread visible when more discussion is merited. Good thread too. :)

[brian.mark]

They don't specifically care about the "Last updated" line. That was something held over from years ago when everyone used that to say how recently an article was posted or the like.

If you use a http viewer (such as http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html) on a static HTML page, the last-modified date is sent as a header. If no date is sent, that shows it is a dynamic page.

I've spoofed the last-modified header on some dynamic pages to keep bots from crawling too often. They used to crawl dynamic pages a lot more than static, but I don't think that's the case any more.

Spiders don't have to be all that smart, because that info is sent to them without your knowledge anyway. :-)

Brian.