Most businesses treat a published page as finished. The service guide written in 2023 sits on the website, still ranking reasonably on Google, still bringing in the odd enquiry. Nobody touches it, because nothing seems broken. AI assistants see that page differently. When ChatGPT or Gemini puts together an answer, it leans towards pages that have been updated recently. A page that has not changed in years is losing ground, even if its Google ranking has not moved. The fix is less work than it sounds. You do not need more content. You need a routine for keeping your most valuable pages current. ## What the research shows Two studies point the same way. The first comes from Ahrefs, which [analysed about 17 million citations](https://ahrefs.com/blog/do-ai-assistants-prefer-to-cite-fresh-content/) across seven AI platforms, Google's AI Overviews among them, and compared them with ordinary Google results. The average page cited by AI assistants was 1,064 days old, against 1,432 days for pages in the organic results. That makes AI-cited content about 25.7% fresher. ChatGPT showed the strongest lean towards newer pages, while AI Overviews behaved more like traditional Google results. The second is more recent. In July 2026, Seer Interactive published a [study of 7,683 pages](https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/study-content-recencys-impact-on-ai-visibility-in-2026) that had been cited repeatedly in AI answers between March and June 2026, drawn from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Three in four of those pages had been updated in the past year, and 88% within two years. By engine, Gemini cited pages updated within the year 78% of the time, ChatGPT 73% and Perplexity 65%. The detail that matters most for business owners is in Seer's comparison of dates. Where both dates could be read, 72% of cited pages looked fresh by their last update, yet only 42% had been first published within the past year. In other words, a large share of the "fresh" pages AI assistants cite are older pages that someone has kept up to date. That is good news. It means your existing content is an asset you can maintain, not a pile you need to replace. ## Read the caveats too Neither study proves that updating a page causes it to be cited. Seer is clear that it measured a correlation, and it could only date about two thirds of the pages it found. Pages that get updated often may simply be better maintained in every other way. Ahrefs adds its own warning. Frequently updating low-quality or irrelevant content will not meaningfully improve AI visibility. Freshness helps a useful page compete. It does not rescue a weak one. There is also a practical reason the link makes sense. AI assistants are often asked about prices and rules that change, and they have every reason to prefer a source that looks current. A page that still lists last year's prices is a riskier thing to quote, whatever its other qualities. So treat freshness as one factor you can control, sitting alongside the basics we covered in [three edits that get your business quoted by ChatGPT](/articles/write-for-the-model-not-the-crawler). Clear answers and accurate facts still come first. ## What counts as a real update The worst response to this research is changing the date at the top of every page and calling it done. Google's guidance on creating helpful content specifically asks site owners whether they are changing page dates to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed. It is a signal of exactly the wrong kind of effort. A real update changes what the reader gets. Useful updates include: - **New numbers.** Current prices, this year's statistics, updated timeframes. - **Corrected facts.** Rules that changed, products you no longer sell, staff who have moved on. - **New examples.** A recent project, a question customers started asking this year. - **Removed material.** Outdated advice deleted and broken links fixed. - **Sharper answers.** A clearer first paragraph that answers the question directly, rewritten from what customers ask now. If you change nothing that matters to a reader, leave the date alone. ## Which pages to refresh first You cannot keep every page current, and you should not try. Start with the pages where being out of date costs you most. ### Pages that make money Service pages and the guides that bring in enquiries. If one of these quotes a 2023 price or describes a service you have changed, it is costing you twice. Customers get the wrong idea, and AI assistants may repeat it. ### Pages that answer comparison questions Seer found comparison and marketplace-style content among the freshest page types cited. If you have pages comparing materials or packages, those are where AI assistants look for current information, and where stale pages are most exposed. ### Pages with time-sensitive facts Anything mentioning costs or regulations goes out of date on its own, and so does anything about grants and rebates. Nobody has to touch the page for it to become wrong. ### Pages that already get cited If you track which of your pages appear in AI answers, protect those first. Seer's data showed that pages cited consistently across all four months of its study had a median time since last update of under six months. If you do not track this yet, start by hand. Put the questions your customers ask to two or more AI assistants, phrased in the customer's own words. Note which pages appear as sources. Then check your analytics for visits referred by AI assistants, which we explained how to separate out in [AI traffic converted 42% better for US retailers](/articles/ai-traffic-converts-better). The pages that turn up in both places are the ones to look after first. ## How often is often enough Seer's figures give a useful sense of scale. The pages cited consistently month after month were not updated weekly. Their median time since the last update was just under six months, and 68% had been updated within the year. Pages that spiked in citations for a single month were fresher still, with a median of about two months, which fits content tied to a news moment or a season. For most businesses that suggests a sensible middle path. Pages that sell should be checked every few months. Reference pages can go longer, as long as someone checks them at least once a year. Nobody needs to rewrite their website every week to stay in the answers. ## A refresh routine that fits a small team You do not need a content department. You need a list of pages and an hour or two a month. 1. **Build the list.** Export your pages and pick the 10 to 20 that matter most, using the priorities above. Note when each was last properly updated. 2. **Set a rhythm for each.** Money pages and anything with prices every quarter. Evergreen guides every six to twelve months. News and announcements can be left as they are, because they describe a moment. 3. **Run the checks.** Seer suggests reviewing evergreen pages against a few questions. Do the facts still hold? Does the page still earn citations? Would being out of date cost you anything? If all three answers are comfortable, a light review is enough. 4. **Make the update.** Change what needs changing, using the list in the previous section. 5. **Show the date honestly.** Display a "last updated" date on the page, and make sure your page markup and sitemap carry the same date so crawlers can see the change. 6. **Log it.** Keep a simple spreadsheet noting what changed on each page and when. When results move, you will know why. Maintenance slips when everyone is busy. Putting it in the calendar, with a named person responsible, is what makes it happen. ## Say you run a landscaping business Picture a landscaping business in Brisbane. In 2023 it published a detailed guide to what a timber deck costs, with price ranges per square metre and a rundown of timber options. The guide brought in steady enquiries for two years. Since then timber prices have shifted. The business stopped offering one of the timbers listed and started offering composite decking. Council rules for decks above a certain height came up in sales calls more often. None of that is in the guide. A customer asks an AI assistant what a deck costs in Brisbane. The assistant leans towards a competitor's page updated this year. It has current prices and a section on composite boards. The landscaping firm's guide, stuck in 2023, is passed over. The refresh takes an afternoon. Update the price ranges from recent quotes. Remove the discontinued timber and add a composite section. Add a short answer about council approvals with a link to the council's own page. Rewrite the first paragraph so it answers "how much does a deck cost in Brisbane" in two sentences. Then update the visible date and the sitemap entry. The page is now worth citing again, and it is more useful to the human customers reading it, which is the point. ## Common mistakes **Faking freshness.** Changing dates without changing content risks the trust of search engines and readers. Do the work or leave the date. **Rewriting everything.** A full rewrite can throw away what made a page rank in the first place. Most refreshes should be targeted edits. **Changing URLs.** Keep the address the same when you update a page. A new URL starts from zero, and any links pointing to the old one need redirects. **Forgetting the rest of the site.** If the service page says one price and the FAQ says another, AI assistants may cite either. Check that related pages agree after every update. **Updating pages nobody needs.** Old announcements and event recaps describe a moment in time. Leave them be, or remove them if they mislead. ## Fresh pages need a site that shows it A refresh only helps if search engines and AI crawlers can see it. That depends on how your website is built. Some sites do not output "last updated" dates in their markup at all. Others run on content systems so awkward to edit that nobody bothers. Our [web development team](/web-development) builds sites with structured data and live sitemaps, on a content system your team can update without a developer. A refreshed page is visible to search engines and AI assistants straight away. And if you would like help working out which pages deserve attention first, our [digital marketing](/digital-marketing) team covers AI search visibility as part of the same system. Pick your ten most valuable pages this week, note when each was last properly updated, and put the first refresh in the calendar.