This is an opinion piece. The views are the author’s own.
You land on a how-to guide or a news explainer, and you cannot tell whether it was written last week or in 2017. The advice might be current. The prices might be wrong. The software it describes might have been redesigned twice. You have no way to know.
Every article on the web should show a clear publication date, and a separate “last updated” date when it has genuinely been revised. This is not a big ask. It is the digital version of a newspaper’s dateline.
Why It Matters
Readers use dates to judge trust. A tax tip, a phone setting or a health finding can age fast. A visible date lets you decide in two seconds whether to keep reading or look for something newer. Hiding it, or burying it, quietly shifts the work of checking onto you.
This is not a fringe idea. Google’s own guidance for site owners recommends showing a visible date on the page, clearly labeled as “Published” or “Last updated,” and says the date in the page’s markup should match what readers see. It also says the date should describe the page itself, not the dates of events the page talks about.
The Honest Way to Do It
The fair version has three rules. First, show the original publication date near the headline, not in a footer. Second, add an “updated” date only when something substantive changed, such as a corrected figure or a new step, not when someone swapped a photo. Third, when an old article is no longer reliable, say so at the top.
That second rule matters because some publishers refresh dates just to look current. A fake update is worse than no date, because it invites you to trust something nobody has checked.
The Objection
Publishers will say evergreen content does not need a date, and that old dates scare readers away. There is something to that: a good guide to boiling an egg does not expire. But if it is evergreen, an updated date proves it. Readers can handle “first published in 2021, reviewed this month.” What they cannot handle is guessing.
Until sites do this, you can protect yourself. Look for a date before you follow any steps, and check it against the version of the app or device you actually have. If you cannot find a date, treat the article as unverified.