: Can dateModified be unset on a Schema.org Article, if so when should it be set for the first time? I am trying to understand what the various dates mean in Article from Schema.org. From what

@Ann8826881

Personally, I would omit the dateModified property as long as the article is not modified after publication. However, that’s more of a philosophical decision than a technical one. Consumers should be able to handle it both ways if they are inclined to do so:


If datePublished == dateModified: The article was never modified after publication (or it was modified, but the author didn’t update the dateModified value).
If no dateModified: The article was never modified after publication (or it was modified, but the author didn’t provide the dateModified property).


Google doesn’t give more information in their Article Rich Snippet documentation, but in their Top Stories with AMP documentation, they say (bold emphasis mine):


The date and time the article was most recently modified, in ISO 8601 format. If the article has never been modified, you can omit this property or use the same date as datePublished.


I guess it’s safe to assume that they will handle it in the same way for their other search result features (e.g., the Article Rich Snippet), too.

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@Connie744

dateModified always has a potential value (there's always something you could set) and can be equal to or later than dateCreated. ‘Creating is modifying’ and a good example of this is the filesystem on whatever OS you're using — creating a file sets the dateCreated and the dateModified together, then subsequent edits change the dateModified.

Whether or not you count publishing as a modification or not is up to you, but I encourage you to be consistent with this. In my case, I do count publishing as a modification, so when publishing I set datePublished and update dateModified.

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