A game can only be released once at a place. There is no agreed upon defintion what constitutes a release or the release status - not on Itch, which is a self publishing platform. Some understand it to be the date of first upload. Some the date when it is done. Some when the game reaches version 1.0. But people do not even agree upon how to number their versions.
On a professionals only platform (any game console and Steam) there is a fixed release date. The date after which the game does no longer count as beta/in development/early access or whatever and is available to the general public. If it were a physical item, it would be the date after which the stores are allowed to sell it.
If you have major updates, make a major update devlog. https://itch.io/devlogs/major-update
Not many people read those announcement threads. Go a few pages back and you will see that most posts have like 20-40 views. And those views do not translate to views on the project. Those are only views of the thread.