I would imagine it would.... however I see some sites who NEVER update anything and are still #1 due to all the backlinks they have and the age, and domain name that matches their keywords
Yes, the search engines will learn what sites that are updating often, and will re-visit these sites more frequently.
Updating fresh content is still matters, but it isn't the only way to be on top. As you said the other site might have a effective link building campaign.
I guess this is largely down to the competition. If they don't update, everyone remains static. If they do and you don't, expect to move down the rankings.
It matters if its not copied and if its good and useful, but updating for the sake of updating has little to no value.
If a site is quite old and authenticated in eyes of Google then they will stay number 1. Because not only contents or backlinks but many other factors are considered for ranking of a website.
Regular fresh contents is a plus on Google and one factor in ranking your site, the good thing about this is your site will be visited by Googlebot on a regular basis, I know this because I do this on my blog and all my new posts are getting indexed within the hour.. and get cached within 48 hours
Actually it does not matter for the top position, however if you are updating the content daily, then the search engines like google and others will crawl your site daily, if alternate days, then craling will be alternate days. If you are looking for the top position, then obviously there are lot more other things than updating content daily
Fresh content updation is one of the important method in SEO. This helps the site for getting frequent relation from Google. All other SEO tech like link building can do slowly and no need to give much important.Unique and fresh content is always the King in the SEO and may be the result will be slower but will be constant
From my point of view, the more fresh, unique and relevant to your main subject content your site has, the more trust you gain from searche engines. But of course, link building is also extremely important. The best way - to combine off and on site works.
Though keywords, domain name and time are important factors of ranking. You need still know that fresh content and update is more important for your website.
I've got a site ranking position 7 at the moment. It's a new site with quite a few links, so I'm going to leave promoting it for a few weeks and see what effect ageing has on the rankings.
I'd say it does matter....it's not just a single thing that gets you to the top but a combination of all things that SEs look at.
"content is king" new content definitely matters.. some older content ranks high.. they are classics.. established.. proven.. for any one starting out.. there is only one way to get there.. more contents.. good contents...