How To Show Article Last Updated Date in WordPress

The prime most thing to Like WordPress is, it’s Open-Source. You can play around with the coding in any way you like.  Here I found an another noticeable and helpful feature of WordPress in its codex library say, ‘Last Modified Date‘ or ‘Last Updated Date‘. Though showing Last Modified or Updated Date is not a good Idea for all type of WordPress site but it would be much useful for those sites that publish evergreen articles. For example, an Article on ‘Latest Godaddy Discount Coupons’ And if a visitor is landed over this Article he might be have a doubt is this coupon is working at present or not. In such a case showing last updated date would be much Helpful to improve the Visitor’s trust.

According to WordPress Codex files showing Last Modified Date on Articles is very easy.  This all could be done,  just by this simple code of piece.

<p>Last modified: <?php the_modified_date(); ?></p>

Place this code next to your Article Published Date. And this will start showing the Date on Which an Article was last updated [modified].

This would be like this, [could be different for some WordPress Themes]

Using Last Modified Date on WordPress

Before adding Last Modified Date:

Published On: <?php the_time('F j, Y') ?>

After Adding Last Modified Date:

Published On: <?php the_time('F j, Y') ?> | Updated On: <?php the_modified_date(); ?>

Result will be as,

Published On: 19 September 2020 | Updated On: 21 09 2020

In My suggestion If you are using this code, then only use on your Single.php file. This will show Last Modified Date on only full articles. Never Show Modified Date on Archives, coz that has no sense.

Is not that looks much better than before? Yes it looks but only for certain Niches. If you are running a Blog to share your thoughts, Like, Dislikes, TV News, Technology News, Photography, etc. Then this script is not for you. This would be helpful for those your shares their skills, such as an article on ‘Improving Search Engine Ranking Position‘ should be updated in accordance of Search Engines latest algorithms. You are sharing a Mobile Review website then this would be helpful for you as we know the prices of mobile phones always goes up and down.

This is very helpful for those website which create Tutorial Articles. Coz People always trust on more updated Articles.  For example I am looking for a tutorial on ‘How Does Google Detects Unnatural Links’ I found a website, but the article is showing 6 month back published date, A question will rise on my mind is this still work?. In other hand if the Article is Showing Last Modified on ‘Date’ next to published date or instead of Published date, is just two days old. No doubt I will trust on that Article if author shouted their something that is helpful for me. So just look your site needs and if that says you should place this code, then go on.