Google has put out a detailed blog post explaining how it determines the dates displayed by listings in search results and outlining helpful guidance and best practices on how to get these right.
Google shows a date when its systems determine it would be useful to do so, so for example for news and other time-sensitive content.
Put your dates in snippets by using mark ups. You can learn how at: www.schema.org.
Google wouldn’t be Google without a bit of obfuscation and it was less than precise about defining exactly the factors that govern which dates are shown:
block quote
“Google determines a date using a variety of factors, including but not limited to: any prominent date listed on the page itself or dates provided by the
publisher through structured markup.”
block quote end
To be fair, Google says all factors can be prone to issues which is why it doesn’t depend on a single one. Publishers might not provide a clear date or
the structured data may be lacking or incorrect. So, it looks at multiple factors to determine a best estimate of when a page was published or significantly
updated.
Google offers the following guidance for publishers and site owners.
How to specify a date
list of 2 items
• Show a clear date prominently on the page.
• With
structured data,
use date Published and date Modified schema with the correct time zone designator for
AMP or non-AMP
pages.
list end
Google News
Google says these items clearly require a correct date for when they were created or substantially updated and specific guidelines for Google News are
available via
Google Help.
Google also reminds publishers not to artificially freshen articles without a significant update.
Further best practice
In addition to the significant information above, Google says publishers should follow these best practices:
list of 6 items
• Show when a page has been updated
• Use the right time zone
• Be consistent in usage
• Don’t use future dates or dates related to what a page is about
• Follow Google’s
structured data guidelines
• Troubleshoot by minimizing other dates on the page
list end
For more details on the above, see Google’s
blog post.