metrics
Freshness window
The time period after which content is treated as stale — varies by topic: 30 days for news, 12 months for evergreen guides.
Definition
Freshness window is the time horizon within which an engine treats content as 'fresh' vs 'stale'. Topic-dependent: news = 7–30 days; product reviews = 6 months; how-to guides = 12 months; definitional content = years. Outside the window, retrieval boosts decay or invert (preference for fresher alternatives). Republishing with updated date can reset the window if substantive changes are made.
Example
A 'best CRM 2024' post in May 2026 is outside the freshness window — engines downrank in favor of 'best CRM 2026' posts.How to optimize
Match content freshness to topic: refresh news content weekly, product reviews semi-annually, definitional content annually. Update dateModified honestly — engines detect fraudulent date bumps.