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Sims2060225

: When does Google use article published date vs article modified date in SERP? I have a website with a number of long form content articles that I keep updated. The page generates two date

@Sims2060225

Posted in: #Articles #Dates #GoogleSearch #Microdata #Serps

I have a website with a number of long form content articles that I keep updated. The page generates two date snippets from this:

<time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2014-04-29T14:08:40+01:00">Published: 29 Apr 14</time>
<time itemprop="dateModified" datetime="2015-03-22T14:59:33+00:00">Last Updated: 22 Mar 15</time>


The date Google displays in the SERPS however is always the date published date.

Moz however has the last updated date for its beginners guide to SEO used in the SERPs.

It has the following two date snippets used:

<meta itemprop="datePublished" content="2014-03-04T17:42:15-05:00">
<div id="last-updated">01.08.2015</div>


Has anyone seen any patterns with on how Google decides which date to use?

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@Ann8826881

Here's the final mark-up I have on my page:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">
<meta itemprop="datePublished" content="2014-05-09T05:40:51+01:00">
... Page goes here...
<time itemprop="dateModified" datetime="2015-02-22T14:55:06+00:00">Last Updated: 22 Feb 15</time>
</div>


Which gives me a in serp date of

22 Feb 2015

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@Caterina187

Historically, Google said they ignored structured data which was not used to markup visible content.

Because your snippet shows both date published and date updated as visible on-page content but the Moz example shows date published as non-visible meta data, I'd try tweaking that and seeing if it works to get Google to show the last update date instead.

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