Google Search Date Filter Does Not Show You Historic Rankings

Apr 1, 2022 - 7:31 am 0 by
Filed Under Google

Google Time Machine

Google's John Mueller confirmed an unusual SEO myth that said that the date filter in the Google Search tools will show you how pages ranked in the search results during that date range. John confirmed this is not true, all it does is filter search results that were published around that date range.

The date filter tool in Google Search is not some sort of time machine to back track and see how well a site ranked for a query in the past.

Chris Silver Smith asked the question after having some sort of argument with an SEO who believed this to be true. He said on Twitter "I've had a preposterous argument with a so-called SEO "expert" who insists that the Date Range search tool shows historic rankings of content, and not just content published within the specified range. Could you confirm it doesn't represent historic rankings?"

Here is that tweet:

John replied that Chris is correct, that it does not show how the rankings were in Google during that date range:

Let, Danny Sullivan also said the same response - saying "it does not."

The funny things we sometimes make up and I guess I can understand why someone would think this, but I never imagined this before - so I am glad we have Twitter.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

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