In my experience, modern search engines give far too much relevance to date, especially for evergreen content. I am purveyor of evergreen articles, and it is sincerely quite obnoxious to put a lot of research and effort into an original article, only to have some flip shop do a lazy rewrite a few months later, citing my article as its primary source, yet ranking higher in search because it is newer. It's a perverse incentive that encourages low-effort regurgitators, and discourages original work. Grumble, grumble.