Keeping your website updated with “fresh” new content just got a whole lot more important now that Google has implemented their “Freshness” update. The change, which Google claims will affect 35% of Web searches, took place last week and marks a doubled effort on the search giant’s part to provide users with more relevant, up-to-date results. This means that sites with more recently updated content will be ranked higher than those sites that rarely do anything.

While this mainly affects websites that are tailored to frequent updates – like news sites or blogs – it can also have repercussions on your site’s ranking as indicated by Searchmetrics weekend analysis of the Web’s more popular online destinations. The point being that if you aren’t already using your website to create new content on a weekly – preferably daily basis – you’ve got some work to do!

What are content freshness factors?

While Google hasn’t come forward to specifically identify what defines “freshness” - though they have left a few clues - it’s not hard to pinpoint a few basic credentials that can help you reevaluate your content strategy from here on out.

• Content is fresh depending on its inception date*
• Content is fresh if it is time-sensitive (news, press releases, product reviews)
• Content is fresh if it is unique to a particular site
• Content is fresh if it is actively shared across multiple social networks
• Content is fresh if it is relevant to a specific niche
• Content is fresh if it utilizes keywords appropriately

*This could vary depending on the actual date the content was published or the date it first appeared in search results.