Most articles show a published date, an updated date, or both. Search engines may display a date in results, and readers use it to judge whether information is current. Google estimates a page's date from several signals, including visible dates and structured data, and asks site owners to show dates clearly and to change them only when the content meaningfully changes.
How Google determines dates
Google's documentation says it uses multiple factors to determine a date, because no single signal is always reliable. Site owners can help by showing a clear, visible date near the title and providing datePublished and dateModified in structured data that match what is visible.
<p>Published March 4, 2025 · Updated September 12, 2026</p>
"datePublished": "2025-03-04T09:00:00-05:00",
"dateModified": "2026-09-12T14:30:00-04:00"Which date to show
- Show both when a page has been substantially revised, so readers see its history
- Show only the published date for news or announcements tied to a moment
- Label each date clearly, for example "Updated"
- Keep the visible date and the structured data in sync
When to change the updated date
Change it when the content changes in a way a reader would care about: new information, corrected facts, a revised recommendation. Fixing a typo or changing a template does not count. Auto-updating dates on every deploy, which some CMS setups do, makes the dates meaningless.
Example
A CMS that updated every page every night
Hypothetical CRM Oakhollow noticed every blog post showed yesterday's date in search results. A nightly rebuild was rewriting dateModified for the whole site. The team tied dateModified to editor-saved content changes only, and added a visible "Updated" line that appears only when an editor marks a revision as substantive.
Common mistakes
Removing dates to hide age
Readers often distrust undated content on time-sensitive topics. Better to update the page and show it.
Conflicting dates
A visible date that differs from the structured data, or several unlabeled dates on one page, makes it harder for Google to pick the right one.
Questions
Changing a date alone should not. Updating the content to be more current can help for queries where freshness matters.
