Dates

Dates may not be a direct ranking factor for SEO, but dates can affect the following metrics:

• Content Freshness: For certain niches, Google prefers to show the latest content in response to search queries. In such cases, the date becomes a major determining factor of SERP rankings

More information on content freshness, please see our dedicated module on the subject.

• Content Relevance: This is a measure of how relevant the content has remained over time, through updates and/or modifications.

• Trust: Content that clearly mentions dates of publication and/or dates of last updates show transparency, which in turn helps build trust.

As part of its process of determining which pages are the best match for a particular search query, Google will consider the following dates:

• Date of publishing.

• Date the content was last updated.

• Dates mentioned in the structured markup.

• In some cases, Google may even consider the date in the URL in case no other relevant data about the content’s dating is available.

However, this doesn’t mean that merely changing the date on a piece of content will lead Google to change its perception of its relevance. Along with the date, the content too must have undergone significant changes to reflect the developments in the theme/topic being reported on.

It also needs to be noted that Google News requires pages to have the correct date to rank them in Search, Top Stories and News App.

3.6.2 Challenges Publishers Face With Dates

When it comes to dates, there exists a lot of confusion among publishers. We’ve explored some of these issues below to shine some clarity on the subject:

Understanding Which Date Type to Pick 

There are three main approaches followed by publishers regarding article/blog dates.

• No date: In this approach, no date is mentioned, either in the URL or on the page. There is no publishing date or the last modified/updated date on a post. This approach works for evergreen content such as cooking recipes, usage guides, product reviews, articles on history, etc.

• Display publication date: In this approach, the date when an article was published is mentioned on the post. Most publishers typically don’t alter the publication date. There are certain exceptions, however, such as when a page has been extensively rewritten or when certain B2B publications prefer not to display the date of last update. The drawback of displaying a static publishing date is that users often prefer recently updated articles, and content with older publishing dates may likely be perceived by visitors as not being very useful.

• Display last modified/updated date: In this approach, the last modified/updated date is mentioned whenever the content is edited or updated. This is usually done in niches where, due to the contemporary relevance of the topic, publishers need to update the content at regular intervals to keep it fresh.

Unaware of the Significance of Including Dates in URLs

Most CMSs include the date as a part of the URL when a new post is published. This, however, can have a significant impact on how users and web crawlers interact with the content.

While the date of publication of an article can be updated, the date in the URL cannot. This means that as time passes, users may perceive the content as being increasingly irrelevant based on the date in the URL. Dates in URLs may also send conflicting signals to web crawlers, especially if the URL date is different from the date mentioned in the body of the content.

3.6.3 Date Guidelines for Google News

Google News employs different methods to ascertain an article’s publication date and time. Listed below are the essential guidelines publishers need to follow to help Google accurately determine the publication date and last updated date of their content.

Display Clear, Visible Date and Time

Since news is time-sensitive content, it’s important to clearly show the date and time of publication/update for articles to be considered in Google News. Expressing date and time can be expressed in the following format:

• Using the 12 hour-clock instead of the 24-hour clock
• Use of hyphens in time ranges
• Capitalizing AM and PM
• Spelling out the local timezone
• Not abbreviating the name of the timezone

The date and time details are best displayed between the headline and the main body of the content. Also, it’s important to present the publication/last updated date in a manner that clearly and unambiguously informs readers and web crawlers that these dates are distinct from any other dates on your page.

Use a Standard Format for Published and Updated Dates

Mention appropriate labels with the date such as “Published” or “Last updated”. Some examples are mentioned below:

• Published Oct 10, 2020

• Posted October 10, 2020

• Last updated: Oct 4, 2020

• Updated Oct 10, 2020, 4 PM IST

While it isn’t mandatory to mention the time of publication, if you do it’s also good practice to mention the time zone for real events at real time, as your content might be read around the globe. Also, make sure that the date and time zone that is visible on the front end is in sync with the date in structured data and the sitemap.

Along with updating your post’s date, it’s important to check if the date change is reflected in your source code. If you’re using Chrome, right click on any blank area in the page, and click on “View Source”. You should see the date reflected in the source code as shown below.

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Ensure Transparency When Updating Content

If you constantly update your page with fresh content, we recommend letting users know when content was last modified by displaying when it was last updated. Ensure that your readers understand that the date no longer references the date the piece was first published.

In the below example pulled from Tom’s Hardware’s Best Picks menu, we can easily see which articles have been updated and which have been published.

Source

Some publishers also allow users to see all the dates on which the content has been previously updated. While this isn’t necessary, it can help build trust with the user while making your editorial process appear more transparent.

Use Sitemap Entries With Publication Dates

Among other functions that sitemaps perform, accurately determining the date an article was published on is an important one. The sitemap entry for the article with Google News sitemap must include a <publication_date> tag.

If you’re modifying the content on your page, it’s a good idea to include a <lastmod> tag in your updated sitemap with accurate details of the date and, if possible, the time the content was last updated.

Doing this accurately and consistently over time makes it easier for Google to both read these specifications from your website, and to develop trust in it. For more on sitemaps and their importance for Google News SEO, see our detailed module.

Use Structured Data Markup

When adding your Published and Updated date to your website, it’s good to use structured data markup. Mention the subtype of CreativeWork such as Article, VideoObject, etc., and use datePublished and/or dateModified fields with correct time zone.

How to Do This

Structured data helps web crawlers better understand the content within an HTML tag. By marking up your dates with structured data tags such as datePublished and dateModified, you make it easier for Google to pick up these dates.

Below is an example of how structured data can be implemented to mark up dates.

Source

For more on structured data, its importance for SEO and how to use it, see our detailed module on schema markup.

3.6.4 Nice to Have

We’ve covered best practices when it comes to content dating, now we’re going to look at some additional techniques which while not as critical still provide value.

Modify Dates Only After Making Significant Changes

We advise changing the date of a page only after making significant content changes. Making minor changes — such as spelling corrections, shuffling images and videos around or adding basic updates — does not count. Simply changing the last modified date after minor changes may lead to users and search engines viewing the content suspiciously.

For instance, if you run an entertainment website that lists the best Netflix shows each month, simply replacing the name of the previous month with the current month and updating the date to the present date, without listing any new shows for the current month would be an example of such a cosmetic change

Modify Dates If/When You Update Statistics

If you publish content that relies on numbers and stats to narrate stories, a good way to keep your content fresh is by constantly updating stats and figures. Once you’ve updated content, make sure to update the date and time accordingly, even if you’ve only made a few tweaks to the stats and figures.

This may seem contrary to advice given in the previous point, but stats and numbers are crucial data whose importance can’t be judged purely by their volume or the frequency with which they appear in your content. Even small changes to important data are crucial and must reflect in your content dating strategies.

Use Google Search Console

Each time you update or refresh your content and add a new date, make sure to submit it for recrawling using Google Search Console (GSC).

How to Do This

If you are submitting a single page for recrawling, follow these steps:

1. Open the Google URL Inspection Tool.

2. Make sure you are logged in as the owner of the property you want to submit for inspection or have full user rights over it.

3. Enter your URL and click continue. Google will then inspect the URL and accept the recrawl request if needed.

In case you are submitting multiple URLs, you might want to submit a sitemap. For detailed information on how to create and submit a sitemap for inspection, see our detailed module on Google News Sitemap.

3.6.5 Avoid These Common Pitfalls

Along with following the guidelines, be careful also to avoid these pitfalls:

Do Not Artificially Freshen Articles 

Since Google’s freshness update, most recent and relevant content has a chance of ranking higher on SERPs, especially if it relates to fields such as news, events, trends, politics, etc.

Since Google is capable of comparing the most recent version with the last version, simply updating or changing the publishing date without making considerable changes to the article will not help with SEO. We recommend publishers to avoid auto-refreshing the dates of the blog/article without making any significant changes.

Avoid Displaying Dates in URLs

Several CMSs such as WordPress by default include the date of publication of the article in the URL. If you use dates in URLs, your content may appear outdated once you update it. Other benefits of not having a date in your URL include:

• Enhances user experience (UX): Removing the date from the URL shortens its length and it’s easier to be shared on other websites, social media platforms, forums, etc. Lengthy URLs are also likely to be truncated in SERP results, preventing users from viewing them clearly.

For instance, from among the two URLs below, the longer URL also has a date in it and has been truncated, whereas the shorter URL does not have a date, appears in full in the SERP results and looks cleaner.

• Avoids Ambiguity: In scenarios where the date in th eURL is different from the date on the post, it’s possible that Google may give preference to the URL date when showing content for a particular query.

How To Do This

Most CMSs allow dates to be removed from URLs by changing the URL settings. If you use WordPress, follow these steps to remove dates from URLs.

• Create a backup of your site then open your WordPress dashboard.

• Go to Settings > Permalinks. This opens a menu where you can select from a number of options for how your links appear.

• Select the Post Name option. This uses only the title of the post in the URL slug without the date.

Please note that changing the URL structure of existing posts could result in 404 errors, which imply that the requested URL could not be found on the server. To deal with these, it is recommended to set up URL redirects using the steps explained in our site architecture module.

Changing the URL structure of new posts however, does not cause errors.

3.6.6 Examples of Dates Used Well

Case Study 1: Healthline

Healthline is one of the most popular resources for health-related topics on the internet. It operates in the sensitive YMYL niche, for which Google has more rigorous quality standards compared to other niches.

For more information on YMYL and Google’s standards, review our module on E-A-T.

Healthline maintains transparency about when it updates its contents. For instance, we can see that it last updated the content on the below page on August 10, 2022.

Source

This not only results in a better UX but also sends out trust-building signals to Google’s human quality raters.

Case Study 2: Lifewire

Lifewire publishes both trending and evergreen content about the tech sector and is meticulous with how it dates its content.

For example, it displays both the date and time an article was last updated. In addition, the website also displays the timezone to avoid ambiguity.

Source

The website also displays clearly whether a specific date is the publication date or the date when the content was last updated.

In case the content has not been updated for some time, the website does not artificially refresh it, clearly displaying only the publication date.

Source

The website also does not display dates in its URLs.

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3.6.7 Actions and Takeaways

You should now have a deeper understanding of the importance of dates and their benefits. You should also have a clear idea about how Google determines the date of publication or modification and how this impacts the manner in which Google processes the information on your site.