QDF ( query deserves freshness ) has been a part of Google’s algorithm since 2010.
If at the start of the new year, you update the content on your website, you should show a “modified date” timestamp instead of the “published date”.
This serves two purposes
- It helps search engines understand that the content has been updated.
- It helps you rank better as now your content has been recently updated (freshness).
SEOs will abuse this often.
You can note this by seeing the year (2022 or 2023) used in the title of the guide.
While Google has smartened up to this abuse, it still works in 2022.
Google does take a diff of the page though.
So if you are going to do this, make sure you also update a portion of the content.
You should also use this if your user is explicitly searching for a year in their query.