Content Freshness and AI: How Often to Update Your Pages
No study shows that updating a page earns AI citations: the one supporting study had no control group, and the date fields it read are self-declared. What stale pages do cause is contradiction — an old price on one page fighting a new one on another. Here is a review schedule built for that.
How Each Platform Handles Freshness
| Platform | Freshness Sensitivity | Update Impact Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Perplexity | Very high (real-time) | Hours |
| Google AI | High (follows indexing) | Days to weeks |
| ChatGPT | Low (training data) | Weeks to months |
| Claude | Low (training data) | Months |
Update Schedule by Page Type
- Pricing page: Update immediately when prices change. Review monthly even if unchanged (update the date).
- Product/Features page: Update quarterly. Add new features, remove deprecated ones.
- Blog posts: Review top-performing posts every 6 months. Update statistics, add new information.
- About page: Update quarterly. Keep team size, funding, and company description current.
- FAQ pages: Add new questions monthly. Review existing answers quarterly.
- Comparison pages: Update whenever competitor pricing or features change. Review monthly.
Quick Freshness Wins
- Add visible "Last Updated: [date]" to all key pages.
- Put the date next to the fact it dates, in visible text. A dateModified in schema that the page text contradicts is noise.
- Review the pricing, About and product pages for anything that changed since you last looked. Leave the rest alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does changing one word count as an "update"?
Technically yes — any modification updates the page. But AI platforms benefit most from substantive updates: new data, new sections, updated statistics. Avoid trivial edits just to change the date.
For more on content structure, see how to write content AI actually cites. Track freshness impact on your score with 99Visibility's monitoring features.
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