Google: Faking Article Dates Is An Old Trick

Sep 14, 2017 - 8:19 am 17 by

Old Google Tricks

Google's John Mueller responded to one complaint about a publisher trying to trick Google, saying that technique is "an old trick." Of course, that implies whatever the trick is, that it is something Google already handles and using that technique does not help the page rank higher.

In short, someone was upset that Fast Company was changing the article publish date and datemodified code to say the article was written today, but it was written long ago. The person assumed it was helping the pages rank well but I doubt it was.

In 2013, we reported a similar technique with BBC & USA Today using this method. In short, Google knows when that URL was discovered, when the content on the page first appeared and when it was changed.

Google doesn't need to use the datemodified tag or a published date on the story to know that.

Here is John's response:

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: January 20, 2025

Jan 20, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Weekly Spend Fluctuations Often Due To Market Conditions Or Budget Changes

Jan 20, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads PMax Search Terms Insights Gains Source Data

Jan 20, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Search Trending Products Carousel On Right Side

Jan 20, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Quality Analyst Detects & Treats AI-Generated Content

Jan 20, 2025 - 7:21 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Don't Dynamically Update Robots.txt File Multiple Times Per Day

Jan 20, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google: Does Your XML Sitemaps Need To Load Fast?