Website version numbers - useful or pointless?

Question

My personal website and others which I am involved with) display their current version number discreetly in the footer or some other area of the site. My question is whether this is useful information to visitors or whether its just textual "noise".

It is worth noting that the version number is the version of the software (not the data within the blog or whatever), so is irrelevant from a "how old is the content on this site" perspective.

Since only one version of the site is active at any given point in time and it is not a redistributed product, does the version number serve any purpose? I understand this is somewhat of a subjective question, but I would like to gauge opinion on this to guide future decisions regarding version numbers and their relevance.

Answer 1

It partly depends on the type of website.

For something like Stack Overflow with lots of features which affect users, I think it makes a lot of sense in conjunction with a change log. In other words, make the version number a link so people can find out about new features, policy changes etc.

For a mostly static website I don't think it's nearly as important. What used to happen doesn't affect my behaviour now because the site is really just disseminating information.

Answer 2

Its noise, stop it. ;)

Well really, I would miss stackoverflow's svn # in the bottom if it went away, whenever the number changes I always take a look around and see whats new.

Answer 3

We use a visible version number so that our admin, sales team and customers can tell that the upgrade worked.

Answer 4

Yes, it's often useful. For example, so that one can easily tell if you / another site is running a bulletin board that has known security exploits. Or in corporate environments, where different customers may indeed be running different versions of the same software.

A website that shows pictures of your grandmother's dancing cat and holiday snaps? Not so relevant.

Answer 5

adding a version number gives a dynamic feel to technical visitors... at least I would see a 5 page static website with a version number as something that is under continuous surveillance by the admin and any interaction with that website would be well catered.

Answer 6

IT's going to depend on who has a copy of non-live code. If only you write/test/deploy, probably won't be terribly useful. If you have a tester or two who may have their own local copies and/or a test server which is not always uptodate on the super latest code changes - having the version there will be useful for any bug reports to contain to be able to tell if they are using a 'fixed in' version or not.

Short From - If anyone else may be helping you with it - Version numbers can become very useful very quickly.