Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Does Google use dateModified or date Published in its SERPs?
-
I was curious as to the prioritization of dateCreated / datePublished and dateModified in our microdata and how it affects google search results. I have read some entries online that say Google prioritizes dateModified in SERPs, but others that claim they prioritize datePublished or dateCreated. Do you know (or could you point me to some resources) as to whether Google uses dateModified or date Published in its SERPs? Thanks!
-
Hello Claire,
From what I have observed Google seems to give a boost to fresh content, or even re-freshed content. I have seen this effect in the following situations:
- When updating the publish date on the page- When updating the last-mod date in the sitemap
- When refreshing a page WITHOUT updating the publish date (though I don't know if the dateModified tag was updated.)
As for empirical data, none that anyone is willing to share publicly. But this is a real effect that has been seen over and over again by myself, and several people I trust. Take it for what it's worth, but going back through old content and looking for ways to improve it, bring it up-to-date, and ensuring the last-mod tag in the sitemap gets updated is a very good use of your time as a marketer.
-
From what I observed, it seems to be the datePublished. Example is this page http://www.grimoires.de/buch/1/. You see "Diese Rezension wurde veröffentlicht am 31.12.2002 und zuletzt geändert am 16.05.2015." (with appropriate schema.org data) below the writer info in the main part. This info is not cheated or manipulated in any way, also used in the sitemap and accurate (it takes the unix time stamp of the time of creation/modification). In a SERP, 31.12.2002 appears. Same for another page that had the content (text) extended.
What might influence it: changes in 2015 were rather minimal - the meta description only, if I remember correctly. I am not sure, if the extent of a change might push google towards displaying the dateModified. It would seem reasonable to me to expect a "change threshold" but in the end I simply don't know. Anybody with hard empiric data?
Regards,
Nico
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Site appearing and disappearing from google serps.
Hi, My website is normally on page 2-3 on google consistently. Over the past month it has been appearing and then completely disappearing from the serps. One day it will be on page 2, then the next day completely missing from the serps. When i check the index it seems to be indexed correctly when doing site:mysite.com. I don't understand why this keeps happening, any experience with this issue? It doesn't seem to be a google dance as far as I can tell. When my other sites dance they typically just go up or down a few ranks for a couple weeks until they stabilize. Not completely fall off the search engine.
Algorithm Updates | | Chris_www0 -
Google Cache
So, when I gain a link I always check to see if the page that is linking is in the Google cache. I've noticed recently that more and more pages are actually not showing up in Google's cache, yet still appear in search results. I did read an article from someone whoo works at Google a few weeks back that there is sometimes an error with the cache and occasionally the cache will not display. This week, my own website isn't showing up in the cache yet I'm still ranking in SERP's. I'm not worried about it, mostly whitehat, but has there been any indication that Google are phasing out the ability to check cache's of websites?
Algorithm Updates | | ThorUK0 -
A page will not be indexed if published without linking from anywhere?
Hi all, I have noticed one page from our competitors' website which has been hardly linked from one internal page. I just would like to know if the page not linked anywhere get indexed by Google or not? Will it be found by Google? What if a page not linked internally but go some backlinks from other websites? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Using Brand value for SEO: Can we use keyword with brand name?
Hi Moz community, I am curious to know this. Let's say there is a brand value for a company. It has it's own popularity that it's been mentioned across the internet and social media directly with brand name without their service or industry keyword. Now if the company started promoting themselves like keyword along with their brand name, will it help them to rank for that keyword. For example, Moz is already famous, now they want to rank for "SEO" and related keywords, so they started calling themselves on internet "Moz SEO"; will this fetch them in ranking for keyword SEO? My ultimate question is, using primary keyword along with brand name will work out in ranking for that primary keyword or not? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Very strange, inconsistent and unpredictable Google ranking
I have been searching through these forums and haven't come across someone that faces the same issue I am. The folks on the Google forums are certain this is an algorithm issue, but I just can't see the logic in that because this appears to be an issue fairly unique to me. I'll take you through what I've gone through. Sorry for it being long. Website URL: https://fenixbazaar.com 1. In early February, I made the switch to https with some small hiccups. Overall however the move was smooth, had redirects all in place, sitemap, indexing was all fine. 2. One night, my organic traffic dropped by almost 100%. All of my top-ranking articles completely disappeared from rank. Top keyword searches were no longer yielding my best performing articles on the front page of results, nor on the last page of results. My pages were still being indexed, but keyword searches weren't delivering my pages in results. I went from 70-100 active users to 0. 3. The next morning, everything was fine. Traffic back up. Top keywords yielding results for my site on the front page. All was back to normal. Traffic shot up. Only problem was the same issue happened that night, and again for the next three nights. Up and down. 4. I had a developer and SEO guy look into my backend to make sure everything was okay. He said there were some redirection issues but nothing that would cause such a significant drop. No errors in Search Console. No warnings. 5. Eventually, the issue stopped and my traffic improved back to where it was. Then everything went great: the site was accepted into Google News, I installed AMP pages perfectly and my traffic boomed for almost 2 weeks. 6. At this point numerous issues with my host provider, price increases, and incredibly outdated cpanel forced me to change hosts. I did without any issues, although I lost a number of articles albeit low-traffic ones in the move. These now deliver 404s and are no longer indexed in the sitemap. 7. After the move there were a number of AMP errors, which I resolved and now I sit at 0 errors. Perfect...or so it seems. 8. Last week I applied for hsts preload and am awaiting submission. My site was in working order and appeared set to get submitted. I applied after I changed hosts. 9. The past 5 days or so has seen good traffic, fantastic traffic to my AMP pages, great Google News tracking, linking from high-authority sites. Good performance all round. 10. I wake up this morning to find 0 active people on my site. I do a Google search and notice my site isn't even the first result whenever I do an actual search for my name. The site doesn't even rank for its own name! My site is still indexed but search results do not yield results for my actual sites. Check Search Console and realised the sitemap had been "processed" yesterday with most pages indexed, which is weird because it was submitted and processed about a week earlier. I resubmitted the sitemap and it appears to have been processed and approved immediately. No changes to search results. 11. All top-ranking content that previously placed in carousal or "Top Stories" in Google News have gone. Top-ranking keywords no longer bring back results with my site: I went through the top 10 ranking keywords for my site, my pages don't appear anywhere in the results, going as far back as page 20 (last page). The pages are still indexed when I check, but simply don't appear in search results. It's happening all over again! Is this an issue any of you have heard of before? Where a site is still being indexed, but has been completely removed from search results, only to return within a few hours? Up and down? I suspect it may be a technical issue, first with the move to https, and now with changing hosts. The fact the sitemap says processed yesterday, suggests maybe it updated and removed the 404s (there were maybe 10), and now Google is attempting to reindexed? Could this be viable? The reason I am skeptical of it being an algorithm issue is because within a matter of hours my articles are ranking again for certain keywords. And this issue has only happened after a change to the site has been applied. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | fenixbazaar0 -
Does using parent pages in WordPress help with SEO and/or indexing for SERPs?
I have a law office and we handle four different practice areas. I used to have multiple websites (one for each practice area) with keywords in the actual domain name, but based on the recommendation of SEO "experts" a few years ago, I consolidated all the webpages into one single webpage (based on the rumors at the time that Google was going to be focusing on authorship and branding in the future, rather than keywords in URLs or titles). Needless to say, Google authorship was dropped a year or two later and "branding" never took off. Overall, having one webpage is convenient and generally makes SEO easier, but there's been a huge drawback: When my page comes up in SERPs after searching for "attorney" or "lawyer" combined with a specific practice area, the practice area landing pages don't typically come up in the SERPs, only the front page comes up. It's as if Google recognizes that I have some decent content, and Google knows that I specialize in multiple practice areas, but it directs everyone to the front page only. Prospective clients don't like this and it causes my bounce rate to be high. They like to land on a page focusing on the practice area they searched for. Two questions: (1) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for SEO? The research I've done up to this point appears to indicate "no." It doesn't make much difference as long as the keywords are in the domain name and/or URL. But I'd be interested to hear contrary opinions. (2) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for indexing in Google SERPs? For example, would it make it more likely that someone searching for "anytown usa divorce attorney" would actually end up in the divorce section of the website rather than the front page?
Algorithm Updates | | micromano0 -
Google sets brand/domain name at the end of SERP titles
Hi all, I am experiencing that Google puts our domain name at the end of the titles in SERPs. So if ia have a title: "See our super cool website", Google would show "See our super cool website - Betxpert.com" in the SERPs Well. This is okay. Apart from the fact that i myself often put the brand name in the title AND the fact that Google mispells the site name. The brand is BetXpert with a upper case X...so when i get a SERP with "See our super cool website - BetXpert - Betxpert.com" I am annoyed 🙂 Any one out the know how to tell Google the EXACT brand name, such that they do not set a value the site owner does not want to have? -Rasmus
Algorithm Updates | | rasmusbang0 -
Google automatically adding company name to serp titles
Maybe I've been living under a rock, but I was surprised to see that Google had algorithmically modified my page titles in the search results by adding the company name to the end of the (short) title. <title>About Us</title> became About Us - Company Name Interestingly, this wasn't consistent - sometimes it was "company name Limited" and sometimes just "company name. Anyone else notice this or is this a recent change?
Algorithm Updates | | DougRoberts0