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By default, Wordpress shows the original published date on the posts or pages no matter how many times you made changes to it.

If you are updating the content of your blog posts on a regular basis, then may you want to display the last updated date rather than just the original published date, so your visitors know when the blog post was last Updated. It will look something like this:

Benefits

Grab your visitor’s attention

Displaying “Last updated” date in the article byline definitely adds value to your post, because not only does it tell your visitors that the content they are looking for is new but also give the impression that you actively updating the content on your site.

If you have an old date in a post byline, your visitors might think your post is outdated and incorrect, even though it is updated frequently. After all, who wants to read outdated content?

Increase your click-through rate in SERPs

Furthermore, Google also pick up the date that appears on the post and display it in the SERPs, informing users about how timely the post is. That way, if users sees your post in the search results, they are more likely to click through to the page, as they assume that the information available will be up to date.

Using WP Last Modified Plugin

The easiest way to display the last updated date for WordPress posts, is by installing a plugin called “WP Last Modified“. This is usually a better option than editing the actual Theme files because – unless you use a child theme – your edits will be lost when the theme is updated.

Also, since every WordPress theme is different, it would be difficult to provide a working code for all themes. So you’re far better off using a plugin over editing theme files.

This plugin provides you with options to:

• display the last modified / last updated date above or below your posts and pages.
• let the search engines know when your content was last updated by adding a revised meta tags to your WordPress posts and pages.

Although the plugin is old and hasn’t been updated for two years, it still works fine with newer version of WordPress.

Upon activation, go to Settings » WP Last Modified » check to activate the ‘Show Last Updated Timestamp’ and customize the remaining options to your liking.

When you’re done, click on the save button to store your changes.

That’s it. Now your posts should show the last updated date after the original published date.

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