Is Google's search team really this naïve? Google keeps cached versions of sites it crawls. An algorithm to catch these date changes would not be difficult to implement.
It might not necessarily be about tricking Google's algorithm. It could also be to make users stick around. People might be less likely to read an article (and potentially click another link on the site and generate another ad impression) if see that the article is "old".
Most people make cursory updates to the body of the text as well. Like my sibling comment said, updating the date also helps your search engagement by showing a more recent date. That said it’s considered best practice to show the original and updated date.
I think the entire point is that it shouldn't "help search engagement" if it's an older article that's been "updated for present year" just to game search results.
>cursory updates to the body of the text
Still pretty straightforward to algorithmically determine if this has happened.
Why would that be surprising? When people search for something, they tend to want more recent info, more recent coverage, more recently made lists, etc.
