date in search results
What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display) a DATE in search results? For instance, search for "Terran site:iconbar.com" -- some of the items listed show a date and some don't. If I ran the world, *every* item would show a date. So often one wants current information, not waste time on stuff from 2001. But sometimes historical stuff is indeed what is sought. So state date. I've long wondered what the mechanism is. -- Jim Nagel www.archivemag.co.uk || See you at the show? www.riscos-swshow.co.uk Feb 24
Re: date in search results
In article <8d6444cb56@6.abbeypress.net>, Jim Nagel wrote: > What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display) a > DATE in search results? > For instance, search for "Terran site:iconbar.com" -- some of the > items listed show a date and some don't. Those with a date seem to have it in the page following the word "updated" as many news stories do elsewhere. I can't say that would be of much use to many of my pages, but gives me an idea. > If I ran the world, *every* item would show a date. So often one > wants current information, not waste time on stuff from 2001. But > sometimes historical stuff is indeed what is sought. A pity there is no standard for a document's date or last revision date, isn't it? We should be using something like a meta tag with name 'published' or 'revised'; perhaps 'updated'. But whatever you use, it needs to appear in the body of a page for a search engine to take notice. Unfortunately, the way these dates are grabbed off a page are not particularly useful in some circumstances. > So state date. I've long wondered what the mechanism is. A search result dates this page as 25th July 1982, showing that the date is grabbed off the page without intelligence: it demonstrates only that such dates are not particularly useful. www.youngtheatre.co.uk/archive/harrow/productions.php There are different publication and build dates in the meta tags which tells me I need to look into this more, thanks for bringing it up. I'm going to add "updated: [date]" to my RISC OS page(s) which are currently undergoing a re-vamp.Done. (~24 pages changed with one edit to read and 'print' the last modification date of the relevant part of the page. Got to love PHP.) -- Tim Hill timil.com : tjrh.eu : butterwick.eu : blue-bike.uk : youngtheatre.co.uk
Re: date in search results
In message <8d6444cb56@6.abbeypress.net> Jim Nagel wrote: > What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display) a > DATE in search results? > If I ran the world, *every* item would show a date. So often one > wants current information, not waste time on stuff from 2001. > But sometimes historical stuff is indeed what is sought. I am not big on conspiracy theories, but here is one with a lot of personal experience to support it. Google is reluctant to return pages with old data. In the beginning Google worked by trying to answer queries. Now it uses every query as an excuse to present pages that can be monetised. Search for a line of a poem and a few years ago you would get a series of hits about the poem and the poet. Now you get a load of crap consisting of references to YouTube videos for songs with lyrics that contain fragments the searched for quote. In the advanced serch options Google used to have an option to search by a range of dates. This has been removed from the mobile a desktop versions. Who is likely to want to pay for advert to pop up on a page that was last updated a long time ago? -- John Rickman
Re: date in search results
On 16 February 2018 12:54:04 GMT+00:00, Jim Nagel wrote: >What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display) a >DATE in search results? > >For instance, search for "Terran site:iconbar.com" -- some of the >items listed show a date and some don't. > Do a search for "Google structured data". Chris
Re: date in search results
In message <8d6444cb56@6.abbeypress.net> Jim Nagel wrote: > What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display) a > DATE in search results? > For instance, search for "Terran site:iconbar.com" -- some of the > items listed show a date and some don't. There is an option which may help for recent "stuff". On every platform (mobile and desktop) the Google search results page has a "ribbon" of options below the search box (web, image, video etc.) and if you go to the right hand end of this is "Search tools". (You may need to scroll right on mobile platforms.) Clicking on "Search tools" introduces another "ribbon" on which one of the options is "Any time". Clicking on this brings up a choice of Past hour/past 24 hours/past week/past month/past year and filters the results on the page. Unfortunately "Search tools" isn't present on Netsurf. Instead the date choices are present by default in the left hand column on the actual delivered page. One up for Risc OS! -- Chris Shepheard writing as himself chris.shephe...@chrispics.co.uk from far west Surreywww.chrispics.co.uk
Re: date in search results
In article <322755cb56.j...@rickman.argonet..co.uk>, John Rickman wrote: > In message <8d6444cb56@6.abbeypress.net> Jim Nagel >wrote: > > What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display) a > > DATE in search results? Luck. And a date at the top of the page, as a letter would have. [Snip] > Google is reluctant to return pages with old data. In the beginning > Google worked by trying to answer queries. Now it uses every query as > an excuse to present pages that can be monetised. Another leg on that conspiratorial stool: is it a good idea to put Google Ads on your own pages because Google will favour them? (But make sure you use an ad blocker yourself!) [Snip] > In the advanced serch options Google used to have an option to search > by a range of dates. This has been removed from the mobile a desktop > versions. #FakeNews. ;-) It is still on desktops. www.google.com/advanced_search It's the eighth parameter on that page. > Who is likely to want to pay for advert to pop up on a page that was > last updated a long time ago? Advertising placement doesn't work like that. The advert is grabbed from a pool as the page is being viewed; it's value is on being viewed now, and what words it contains, not necessarily how old it may be. It's easy to fake those dates anyway. Only things like http://web.archive.org/ give a true idea of page's age as it keeps a note of when things are fetched. There is another huge factor which has pushed many older pages further down all search results. Mobile compatibility. Even if your content is not specifically expecting mobile users (e.g. any RISC OS specific site!) your web pages won't appear high in the results if they don't work on a phone against pages that do. This is because mobile use of the web overtook desktops in November 2016 and Google changed their policy to prioritise mobile-friendly content. (Yes, perhaps it is a bit odd. Desktop search results have non-mobile content 'suppressed' even though a desktop user isn't looking for mobile content.) Your mention of YouTube is illustrative. It works on every size of display; most old websites don't. YT is also Google's own site, obviously. For registered webmasters, Google search helpfully displays your own page results with "This page is not mobile friendly" if that applies. (Too bloody often, tbh). I'd like to think all RISC OS webmasters are feeding their sites into http://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly/ and gradually fixing this but they are obviously not(!). However, with no serious mobile-friendly competition, there is little incentive for RISC OS specific web sites to improve. Perhaps young people will, in frustration, write their own mobile-friendly RISC OS websites. :-o I know from personal experience that (e.g.) a site which uses large fixed widths for layout or - perish the thought - tables for non-tabular information, or even just large images, iframes, frames or small buttons too close together, it is a whole lot of fun trying to make content work and look okay on both an iPhone 5 with a 320px wide screen and a 3840x2160 4K display. T -- Tim Hill timil.com : tjrh.eu : butterwick.eu : blue-bike.uk : youngtheatre.co.uk
