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Google Testing Dates on Search Snippets

A WebmasterWorld member is spotting some interesting Google interface tests with regards to placement of dates on snippets of SERPs. pageoneresults writes:

In performing certain search queries, Google appears to be inserting the date of the page in front of the Snippet. I just performed one search and 5 of the 10 results had dates preceding their Snippets. One of them had the date towards the end of the Snippet.

Of the 6 dates shown, all were within the past 10 days with the exception of a Press Release from 2007.

Michael Gray has spotted this as well. (Note: this differs from the visits that are recorded by Google if you're logged in.)

He believes that Google is finding that the dated results is actually faring well for Google. From my experience, the inclusion of the date has helped especially since dated results feel fresher.

In fact, if you do site: searches, you can find some good results as well, and another person agrees that the dated results are obviously incredibly helpful, especially in a technological field where things are always changing.

I'm guessing we'll be seeing more of that in the future.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

This article was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 9th.



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posted Tamar Weinberg in Google Search Engine at October 9, 2008 8:48 AM Comments (3)

Comments

Yes! I have noticed it too...

 

It will be more help ful for the sites with frequent change like Blogs. One can't sit back after creating a site.He needs to change it to attract search engines. Not bad. My site http://www.itsupportcell.com will definitely be nefitted from it i hope

 

For the record, I noted that Google snippet blog rules change back in March of this year. There was a good deal of online discussion on this then.

 

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