Sunday, January 5, 2020

Confusion about Dates in Google Search Results

In the wake of Soleimani's death on Jan 3, I have been running some Google searches to look for posts prior to this date (I like to do this to get a fuller context of the issue, because once a major event breaks it is hard to get background information while sorting through the haze of people trying to sell their narratives).

I ran a search from 01/01/2000 to 01/01/2020, figuring that would omit the breaking news articles. But to my surprise there were several articles from major news sources dated 12/30/2019 and 01/01/2020 discussing Soleimani's death.

I always assumed that the dates for Google search results were the last index/last updated date, but looking into it further it sounds like Google uses a variety of methods for deciding what date to assign to a result, and that nobody outside of Google knows for sure how that is done.

So my question for you guys is this: what are some factors that could cause a bunch of news articles like these to show up with a date prior to the event they are covering?

(note: my own conspiracy sense is buzzing, so feel free to speculate on that if you like, but I'm primarily interested in technical details!)

submitted by /u/helmutye
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from Search Engine Optimization: The Latest SEO News https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/ekjohs/confusion_about_dates_in_google_search_results/>

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