[jl6]

You are correct - this is an attempt to appear fresh. But it is no excuse. It’s still an anti-user dark pattern.

[ratww]

Yep. It is an intention to appear fresh to Google, so that it can rank above websites that have better content but are using dates. Users be damned.

[dgb23]

Fully agree. Also you can appear fresh regardless _if you are actually fresh_, simply by adding an review/update date.

[wrycoder]

Or if you’re not, just use a cron to keep the dates fresh

[jrwoodruff]

But... then what's the point of a date at all? May as well not have one.

[wrycoder]

I should have used /sarc

The idea was to fool people and bots into thinking it was fresh!