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Get Started Free →Use when auditing article or blog pages for date markup, generating Article JSON-LD with datePublished/dateModified, or checking whether a CMS template surfaces dates correctly.
| Test case | Without → With | Effect | Δ tokens | Δ turns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| case-01 | ✗→✓ | ▲ Improved | 14% | 0% |
| case-02 | ✓→✓ | ＝ Same ✓ | 14% | 0% |
| case-03 | ✓→✓ | ＝ Same ✓ | 6% | 0% |
| case-04 | ✓→✓ | ＝ Same ✓ | 9% | 0% |
| case-05 | ✓→✓ | ＝ Same ✓ | 43% | 0% |
Google uses publication and modification dates to assess content freshness, which influences rankings for time-sensitive queries. Visible dates also build user trust by signalling that content is current and maintained.
dateModified in JSON-LD for every article or blog post2024-03-15T10:00:00Z) in structured data; human-readable in the visible UIdateModified only when content meaningfully changes — not on trivial editsOn each article or blog page, check: (1) Is there a visible published date in the page body or byline? (2) Does the JSON-LD Article or BlogPosting block include datePublished and dateModified properties in ISO 8601 format? (3) Does the <head> include <meta property="article:published_time"> and <meta property="article:modified_time"> Open Graph tags?
<time datetime="2024-03-15">March 15, 2024</time>.datePublished and dateModified to the Article JSON-LD block:json { "@type": "Article", "datePublished": "2024-03-15T10:00:00Z", "dateModified": "2024-11-20T14:30:00Z" }
<head>:html <meta property="article:published_time" content="2024-03-15T10:00:00Z"> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2024-11-20T14:30:00Z">
dateModified automatically on content saves.Google's freshness algorithm rewards recently published or updated content for time-sensitive queries. Structured date markup lets Google confidently surface the correct date in search snippets; without it, Google must guess from page text or HTTP headers, often producing wrong or missing dates.
Verify that Article or BlogPosting JSON-LD includes both datePublished and dateModified in ISO 8601 format. Check that <time datetime='...'> elements in the body use machine-readable dates. Confirm dateModified updates when content changes, not just on every deploy.
For full implementation details, code examples, and framework-specific guidance, see references/rule.md.
Rule page: https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/content-dates
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