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WP Bulk Publishing

Quality signals → Freshness

Freshness

Freshness matters more for some queries than others — "best iPhone 2026" needs it, "how photosynthesis works" doesn't. WBP Up to Date is built to handle that nuance rather than treat all content the same. Every URL is classified by volatility at publish time; the freshness formula weights the age of the page against how fast the topic actually moves.
TL;DR: Freshness Score = min(100, Raw Age Score × Volatility Multiplier). High-volatility topics multiply by 1.5; medium by 1.0; low (evergreen) by 0.5. Evergreen pages don't lose freshness — they just don't gain it.

1. When freshness actually matters

Google's Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) system detects when a query has a fresh intent — news, prices, model releases, ranking changes — and re-weights the SERP toward recently updated results. For queries without a fresh intent (definitions, tutorials, historical explainers), freshness is neutral or negative.

The right question is not "how often should I refresh" but "does this query have a QDF component". WBP's refresh scheduler answers that per-URL, not per-site.

2. The freshness formula

Freshness Score = min(100, Raw Age Score × Volatility Multiplier). Raw Age Score decays with days since last substantive update; the multiplier is set at publish time by classifying the topic into one of three volatility tiers:

  • High volatility (×1.5) — model releases, prices, rankings, news. Update cycle: weekly to monthly.
  • Medium volatility (×1.0) — tool comparisons, integrations, seasonal guides. Update cycle: quarterly.
  • Low volatility (×0.5) — definitions, history, foundational concepts. Update cycle: yearly or on-signal only.

The min(100, …) cap prevents high-volatility pages from over-scoring right after an update — freshness saturates at 100 and can't compound.

3. Automated refresh workflows

Timestamp republishing

Substantive edit detected → sitemap.xml lastmod, Article schema dateModified, and visible page date all advance together.

Content refresh

Better Rank flags a substitutability rise vs top 3 → the template opens the affected rows for scheduled edit.

Year updating

'Best X 2026' pages auto-detect the year token, but only advance it when a substantive diff clears the threshold.

Expansion trigger

New entities appear in top-ranking competitors → the template flags the row for expansion, not just refresh.

4. What we don't do

  • We do not auto-change content without human review — the workflows queue edits, they don't publish them.
  • We do not update genuinely evergreen pages just to bump a modified date.
  • We do not add [2026] or year tokens to titles for evergreen concepts.
  • We do not refresh every page on the same weekly cadence — signals a bot, not an editor.
  • We do not remove publish date to hide age. Trust drops faster than freshness does.

5. How WBP schedules refresh

The Up to Date plugin classifies every URL against a QDF profile at publish time — evergreen, slow-moving, seasonal, or fast-moving. Each profile has its own refresh cadence and its own diff-required threshold.

Refresh runs are not calendar events; they're triggered by change signals: a competitor updates their page, a Google update ships, a cited source publishes a new version, a Better Rank scan flags substitutability. The template edits only what changed, and the Article schema dateModified only advances when the diff clears the threshold.

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