An SEO professional was wondering about adding a date to their headlines.
First, they had a question about blog comments. They had a section below their article that featured comments. However, it’s not showing on Google.
For example, if they searched for a comment, such as something that someone might have been typing in the comments, and they searched for it.
They could not find it like the article is not showing there.
So their main question is: what is the good (or best) practice for the comment section?
John explained that it’s up to them. They can decide if they want that comment content shown or not. But, it’s really a technical element on the page.
There isn’t a setting in Google Search Console to turn them on or off.
However, there are different ways of integrating comments on web pages. And some of those ways are blocked from indexing. And some of those ways are easy to index.
If you want to have your comments indexed, then make sure that you implement them in such a way that is easy for Google to index them.
The Inspect URL tool in Search Console will show you exactly what they find on the page. So you can test to see if Google can index the comments.
But, it sounds like they can already see that Google can’t index them.
Then the SEO professional asked if they should add the date in the title. They have a problem with the “currentness” of their content.
They were asking John if they should add the date to the title.
John answered that adding the date to the title doesn’t change anything. For news articles, he does believe it makes sense to include the date in various places on the page.
And this can include the title, just because with news articles they try to understand what the primary date is.
They do that by looking at all of the mentions and things that you have on the page. If Google can confirm that date with these mentions, then it’s easier for them to pick it up.
But, for instances where things are changing constantly, like currency prices or stock prices, it’s not critical to have the date in the title.
This happens at approximately the 16:47 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 4 16:47
Okay, we have a comment section under the article. But it’s not showing in Google. Like if I searched for a comment, like someone is typing in comments, and I search for it. I don’t find it like the article is not showing there.
Is there a best practice for the comment section I should do? So can Google like, see more of our comments? Because comments are like discussions about the news that’s happening. What is the good practice of this…?
John 17:14
it’s up to you. Like you, you can decide if you want to have that shown or not. But it’s essentially a technical element on the page. So it’s not that there’s a setting in Search Console to turn it on or off.
It’s basically, there are different ways of integrating comments on web pages. And some of those ways are blocked from indexing. And some of those ways are easy to index. So if you want to have your comments indexed, then make sure that you kind of implement them in a way that is easy to index.
And the Inspect URL tool in Search Console will show you a little bit what we find on the page. So you can test to see can Google index the comments.
But it sounds like even when you search in Google directly, you already see that we can’t index them. So
SEO Professional 4 18:06
Yes, so there’s some problem, I think, in structure. Okay. Should we add the title? In the not the title, the dates in the title? Like we have some prices of currency? So our currency today is like all the currencies for today. Should we add the title? Or should we add the date inside the title?
John 18:31
I don’t think I don’t think it changes anything. So for news articles, I do think it makes sense to include the date in various places on the page, and that can include the title. Just because with news articles, we try to understand what the primary date is of the page.
And we do that by looking at all of the mentions and things that you have on the page. And if we can confirm that date with these mentions on the page, then it’s easier for us to pick that up.
But I think for pages that are changing constantly, like currency prices, like you mentioned or previously, stock prices, I don’t think it’s critical to have the date in the title.
SEO Professional 4 19:17
We are creating a new article each day with a different…that’s why I said maybe we should list the date or not. Each day there is a new article, but we are not not changing the main article, like the static page.
John 19:32
I suspect that will make it really hard for us to crawl and index your website. So that’s kind of the other aspect there, if you’re automatically generating these pages on a daily basis for all of the currencies…
SEO Professional 4 19:45
No, not automatically. Manually, actually. Yeah, we are writing…the dollar rises because of one, two, three, the dollar…
John 19:53
Yeah, oh okay. I mean, from my point of view, then those would be normal news articles. So if you want to include the date in places like that, I think that’s perfectly fine. I don’t think you would get any magical SEO bonus from adding the date, but it’s OK.
