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Edward - thanks for posting this. Sitetechie - great detective work!
We are seeing the same issue:
I have changed our YouTube embeds (Wordpress site using oEmbed) to just plain links until Google resolves this issue.
If anyone else has any more information on this bug, please keep posting here.
ViviCa1 - thanks for posting this link to the Q&A. It describes exactly the problem we're seeing.
Here's the link again for anyone else with the same problem:
https://moz.com/community/q/dates-appear-before-home-page-description-in-the-serps-huge-drop-in-rankings
If it is an algo update, it means Google is deliberately sinking articles with old datestamps, or conversely favouring articles with new/no datestamps.
Otherwise there's no way to explain why changing the embedded video to a link would instantly* restore rankings.
That does not seem like sensible behaviour. I agree with QDF for new content, but an old, regularly updated page with content that meets searchers' needs should never be penalised because of its publish date.
I'm leaning towards glitch on this one.
I hope I'm correct, because I don't want to serve a terrible user experience (linked videos instead of embeds) just to maintain our rankings.