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Google Still Ignores Last-Modified Meta Tag

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If you are using the last-modified meta tag, be aware that Google ignores this tag when it comes to SEO.

The tag is <meta http-equiv=”last-modified” content=”YYYY-MM-DD”> which was originally used to alert crawlers to the fact a page was updated, or as a reference to when it was last updated after it was initially published.

The question came up on Twitter, and John Mueller from Google commented that Google does not use this tag at all.

It also references a post from 2011 where Mueller also said Google does not use the last-modified tag for “crawling, indexing, or ranking.”  And this tag isn’t included in Google’s list of meta tags they use.  Other search engines could use the tag, though.

It is worth noting, however, that from a user perspective, many users like to see an actual date a page was last updated in text on a page, especially for content that is not evergreen and could change over time.  But don’t expect that this meta tag specifically will do anything for Google.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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Comments

  1. Interesting

    But if this is true, how does Google determine freshness?

    Would it have to crawl a full page then track changes made since previous crawl?

    I’m curious because we have no dates on our articles. They just say: “updated daily” and “updated weekly”. I’ve seen SERPs where our pages rank beneath those with last updated text next to them (e.g. “4 days ago”). I suspect that not having dates on pages means the freshness of our content is overlooked

  2. It would only seam right that Google Still Ignores Last-Modified Meta Tag. Because no one ever update this tag in their webpage source.