I have recently moved the blog post byline from just underneath the post title all the way down to the end of the post. Lisa Irby tweeted me about my decision so I decided to put the thinking behind it in a blog post so others can see my reasons for this, as well.
2createawebsite Hi Marko, I’ve noticed you and a few others don’t date blog posts. I’d love to know your reason for this.
My response in less than 140 characters was:
@2createawebsite mostly because my posts are kind of timeless, and by having an old date can give an outdated image while it is not
Creating timeless blog posts
This has to do with my concept of putting the best blog posts back into the spotlight for my new visitors, even though a blog post might have been written a month or two ago.
I try to write content that doesn’t lose its value and relevance for bloggers as time goes by. I do not just report on the current events and news except for stories on new WordPress and Thesis releases. Even in those cases I include as much analysis as possible to make it very useful for readers at any period in time.
Not chasing blog page views
My other blogging concept is not to chase page views. I do not sell banner ads on cost per thousand (CPM) impressions while it is the preferred method of blog monetization for many of the biggest blogs.
This is why they must write daily and report on all the happenings around so they can keep you visiting and keep the page view count high, so they can sell as many banner ads as possible.
These two things, writing timeless articles and not having to focus on producing new content constantly as I do not depend on page views, give me freedom to focus on some older articles and have them as sticky posts on my front page, for example.
Blog post byline was giving a wrong impression
40%+ of my total blog traffic comes from Google and other search engines, and a majority of these visitors go to my older posts directly and not to the front page.
As the post byline is just underneath the post header, it is one of the first things people notice and I believed that it would give a wrong impression to a new visitor. Impression of outdated and irrelevant blog post, or even worse an impression of an inactive blog. And that is not the image you want when running a blog consulting service.
So, I do not want to give these visitors a chance to click on the back button just because the date on the article is 2 months old. The important thing is that the content is still very relevant and that is why removing the date the post was published on from the top of the article will contribute to new visitors focusing on the content and not on the date published.
Blog byline customization for Thesis users
For users of Thesis theme, in Appearance in Thesis Options under Display Options then Bylines untick all the different selections and click on the “Big Ass Save Button”.
Insert this in your custom_functions.php to get my blog look or edit it to fit with whatever you want to include in your byline:
function custom_byline() {
if (is_single()) {
?>
<p><p class="headline_meta">Post written <?php thesis_author(); ?> on <abbr class="published" title="<?php echo get_the_time('Y-m-d'); ?>"><?php echo get_the_time(get_option('date_format')); ?> <?php echo __('in', 'thesis') . ' <span>' . get_the_category_list(',') . '</span>'; ?></abbr>
<?php }
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_post', 'custom_byline');
Have you considered what image you are sending your visitors?
I hope this explains my thinking behind post date in the blog post byline and I hope it helps you decide what the best thing is for your blog.
Did you think about post bylines and consider what kind of image you are sending to your new blog visitors?
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I appreciated your points here and it's something I might consider in the future.
I've actually done the same thing on my blog. I show the date on the main page so people can see that it is being updated every day but I don't show the date on the post page so that anyone who stumbles upon it will see it and not be distracted by an old date.
I actually removed the dates from my posts for this exact reason about 2-3 months ago.
I've been to many websites that show posts written 2-3 years ago that are still very relevant for the times, and they do get a bad rap and are often looked at as outdated.
I was actually surprised at reading this post as I haven't seen many other bloggers doing the same thing.
I think moving the byline with date to the bottom is a good move for any blog that isn't focused on providing news. I'll probably switch to this on my blogs, haven't had much time to blog lately though, working on building a couple products. Good post.
Really great information that you posted. I might have to try this on some blogs that I have. Thanks Greg Ellison
Hi Marco,
Good idea, I was going to remove the dates from my blog, only laziness stops me. The whole idea of timeless content is from the Steve Pavlina school of blogging and it's obviously worked for him.
By the way nice use of internal linking.
Good one Marko and one that makes me think
Occaisionally, well quite often really, I want to rant. And you made me start examining what I was doing. So instead of saying yesterday – I'll now say in June or July, 2009 or sometimes put the date in. It then gives the post a timelessness and maybe as things change or new events i can just a couple of paragraphs and bring in the rest.
Thanks and keep up the good work
Paul
Having read the comments I think if you move the author, date written etc to the bottom of the post it doesn't necessarily date the article, because the reader will have read, or at least scanned the post first.
If the date is on the top of the post then, of course, the date is almost as significant as the post. To some extent I like to have a date on the bottom of a post, so that I can see how my writing has developed, or deteriorated.
This is a nice post. I think this works great for blogs that are more like micro-sites, and in fact that is more like what I want with my DesignTypeGeek.com site. Like a site of resources. I've followed the instructions and removed the byline, now to see how the custom function works out.
Marko is there a line of code missing from your example, or a curly brace or something? Having trouble with it, but working through it. I guess I need more practice mixing HTML and PHP tags. I never got your custom bookmark to work either.
Got it, had to use:
function custom_byline() {
if (is_single()) {
?>
Post written on <abbr class=”published”><?php echo get_the_time('Y-m-d'); ?></abbr>
<?php
}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_post', 'custom_byline');
Thanks! Steve Pavlina is one of my favorite bloggers, his ideas, writing style and internal linking make me spend hours on his blog every time he has a new blog post.
Definitely. Revisiting your old posts, and updating them with current information is the way to go. Those old posts still get a lot of views from Google searches etc.
Yeah, there was a character missing. Fixed now. Never do anything via the “Visual” editor in WordPress, always use HTML one hehhe especially when putting codes in.
Hey Marko, Thanks for the code! This was mentioned by Tim Ferriss in his High Traffic Blog presentation. Is there a way to keep the dates at the top on the home page but have them at the bottom on the single post pages?
In Thesis you can use teasers on front page like I do, and you can easily select date in the teasers byline without changing your actual blog post byline. It is all located in Thesis interface.
oh great! I don't know how I missed that. Thanks again Marko!
I have the date at the end of the post. So they will read it, and later see that it is an old post. And this is only on posts, not on my homepage.
But what you are saying is a good point too. When you don't have dates at all, they won't look at if it is a new, relevant, article. Only if it brings value to them.
I like the general idea of this post and agree with much of it. I do however significantly disagree with the commentary about “chasing page views”.
You can view my response on my blog at michaelmindes.com
I am a firm believer of the pure mathematics of it, and the bottom line is that more views = more money. As long as you want to make more money doing what you love.
This is great, because I just put this on my task list today…removing date stamping from my posts. A recent video (it's going around; it's on fourhourblog, problogger, and my blog of course also) with Tim Ferriss of Four Hour Work Week talks about how many visitors are biased toward new content, which makes sense. Tim felt that some of his visitors were bouncing off content just because it wasn't brand new…so he removed his date stamping from archived posts, and it made them more sticky. Gotta love the simple stuff…especially when it works!
Also, I'm compelled to mention that Lisa Irby rocks
One of the hardest working bloggers and entrepreneurs out there.
Thanks for your comment Michael.
About more views = more money. If I post a new post everyday and you stop by and read it everyday, is that making me more money? As long as I am not selling anything in those posts, then no. But if a completely new visitor gets introduced to my blog via search engines or Twitter, he mostly does via older posts. And that is why improving old stuff is important, and not just focusing on new content and neglecting old stuff.
About plugins being outdated: I do not agree that the 24 plugins list is outdated if I stop using some of the plugins on my blog. I still use only the plugins from that list, but I have removed some of them and done similar functions by coding (like Tweet this etc) and I have blogged about how to do that.
And about not writing about blogging: Writing a post on post byline may not seem to be exactly relevant to your blog but it is still info that may help you improve it. When you start getting visitors then small changes can improve your conversion rates and subscription numbers.
Definitely. And she is really good at using video to differentiate herself.
Timeless blog posts sounds like a stretch, few are genuinely timeless.
Not showing dates for posts does not make a post timeless in itself, usually date can be found in comments.
Of course. The whole point is though that people do focus on dates. So a post like this one that you just commented on, it shouldn't matter if you read it today or you read it in 5 months. The content will be just as valuable.
The problem though is that a person that reads this in December 2009 and sees that the post was written in July 2009, he might find it less attractive and decide to look for something “fresh” without giving it a chance.
Nothing to do with hiding the date, just putting focus on the content itself and not giving the date as one of the first things people see.
Wow… timeless content is a great way to keep things relevant.
Marko, Interesting insights. I've thought about this lately in relation to my blog as well as in relation to the various web sites I frequent. My thinking is that the relevance of byline and date may depend on the type of content being created.
On one hand I completely agree with the idea that there is a lot of really interesting and useful content where the “age” is not a limiting factor in terms of how useful or relevant it is. For instance if I'm looking for info on how to become a better writer I could find something 10 or even 30 years old that may be more useful than something created six months ago.
However there are also plenty of cases, especially in tech-related areas, where I do want to know when the given content or post was created. For instance if I'm reading information about Google PageRank I believe there is a lot of relevance knowing if the information was created in 2005 or 2009. So the creation date can be much more relevant in areas that change rapidly.
On posts Where there is no date listed in the byline I sometimes find myself scrolling to the bottom and the comments section to see the dates of the comments to provide additional context to the post. But that again depends on the focus of the post.
No one clear answer for all situations but you provide some excellent food for more thought. Great post. Thanks.
Hey
Thank you for your amazing site. I don't have anything to promote but I do have a question. I followed your instructions above but got the following result. How do I make it show Author Name. No Author name is shown! Im using the latest Thesis. Thanks
Post written by on JULY 14, 2009 IN UNCATEGORIZED
Nevermind found it.
The above code does work however you must have a nickname listed in your profile.
Users>Profile>Nickname.
This is such great advice, Marko. Thanks for expanding on this. It will definitely make me think twice about having dates on my posts. I love it when bloggers take the time to expand on questions they receive. Great job.
Nice tip on removing the date of the post. I will definitely do that on my blog.
Thanks for the precious information.
Hey Marko,
Way to go, I have to agree with you and your insight. I haven't used dates with my blog posts for some time now… maybe I should also write up on the reasons for doing so.
What's else is new with you? Cheers!
-Mig
Wonderful. But how do I remove the date from the below the headline?
I have explained this in the article.Thesis offers it in the “bylines” in the interface.
But that removes the date/author byyline from the blog home page too.
I have to add this function:
function custom_byline_top()
{
if (!is_single()) {
?>
<div class=”headline_meta”><?php thesis_author(); ?> on <abbr class=”published” title=”<?php echo get_the_time('Y-m-d'); ?>”><?php echo get_the_time(get_option('date_format')); ?><!– <?php echo __('in', 'thesis') . ' <span>' . get_the_category_list(',') . '</span>'; ?>–></abbr></div>
<?php
}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_headline', 'custom_byline_top');
If this is not required, and can be handled without this function, pls do let me know..