Freshness: do all dates say the same? Freshness
A page often has four dates: in the schema, in the meta tag, in the visible text, in the sitemap. If they disagree, the AI trusts none of them.
Experimental. The tools are based on public statements by AI providers, current studies, published assessments by AI and SEO experts and hands-on experience of site owners. AI platforms do not disclose their criteria, so the results are approximations, experience and observations.
1What is it?
TagSpion collects all date sources: datePublished and dateModified in JSON-LD, article:modified_time, <time> elements and visible dates in the text, the Last-Modified header and lastmod in the sitemap. Then it compares them.
2Why it matters
Freshness is a trust signal for Google and AI. Contradictory dates look like unmaintained content. A dynamic Last-Modified header that always says "now" does not count as a real date.
3What TagSpion checks
| Check | Rating |
|---|---|
| Sources found | number and origin |
| Span oldest to newest date | green up to 1 day · yellow up to 30 days · red above |
| Last-Modified dynamic | hint, does not count |
| Visible date in the text | yellow if none |
4How to fix it
- Maintain one date and output it everywhere: JSON-LD dateModified, meta article:modified_time, visible as <time>, lastmod in the sitemap.
- Only change it when the content really changed.
<!-- 1. JSON-LD --> "datePublished": "2026-01-10", "dateModified": "2026-11-09", <!-- 2. Meta tag --> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2026-11-09T09:00:00+01:00"> <!-- 3. Visible in the text --> <p>Updated: <time datetime="2026-11-09">9 November 2026</time></p> <!-- 4. Sitemap --> <lastmod>2026-11-09</lastmod>
5Frequently asked questions
Does a daily updated date help?
No. A date without a change is a known pattern for Google and is ignored or devalued.