Blog/article schema includes dates

Freshness is one of the few signals AI-search vendors name in their own docs. Microsoft is explicit that staleness is worse in AI answers than in ranking — "In search, stale content degrades ranking. In grounding, a stale fact produces a misleading response" — and lists "regular updates" among its AI-citation guidance; Google describes its AI features as retrieving "up-to-date web pages from our Search index." The cross-vendor way to declare freshness is visible dates on the page (covered by publication-dates-visible) plus an accurate sitemap lastmod (Bing calls it "a key signal" for AI answers). datePublished/dateModified in Article or BlogPosting schema is the structured, Bing-side bonus on top of those: machine-readable dates generated from the same source as the visible ones, so the two never disagree.

Add Article or BlogPosting JSON-LD to each blog post with at least datePublished set. Generate the schema at render time from your post's frontmatter or CMS metadata so dates stay accurate.

// app/blog/[slug]/page.tsx
<script type="application/ld+json" dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: JSON.stringify({
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BlogPosting",
  "headline": post.title,
  "datePublished": post.publishedAt,   // ISO 8601: "2026-04-02"
  "dateModified": post.updatedAt ?? post.publishedAt,
  "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": post.author }
})}} />

At minimum, datePublished is required. Including dateModified when content is updated signals freshness to AI systems more precisely — a post from 2024 updated in 2026 should reflect the 2026 dateModified date.

• ID: article-dates-in-schema

• Severity: low

• What to look for: If blog posts or articles exist, count all blog/article page routes. Search for Article or BlogPosting JSON-LD schema — look for "@type": "Article" or "@type": "BlogPosting" in structured data blocks. If found, check whether datePublished and dateModified fields are present. Count how many blog pages have schema with dates vs. total blog pages.

• Pass criteria: Count all blog/article pages. At least 1 blog or article page must have Article/BlogPosting JSON-LD schema with at least the datePublished field set. If multiple blog pages exist, at least 80% should have Article schema with datePublished. Bonus: also including dateModified is noted in detail on pass.

• Fail criteria: Blog content exists but either has no Article/BlogPosting schema at all (0 Article schemas found), or has the schema without date fields (datePublished missing from all schema instances). Report: "X of Y blog pages have Article schema with datePublished — Z% (threshold: 80%)" or "0 Article/BlogPosting schemas found across Y blog pages".

• Skip (N/A) when: No blog or article content exists on the site.

• Detail on fail: "0 Article/BlogPosting schemas found across 3 blog pages — AI systems cannot determine content freshness from structured data" or "BlogPosting schema present on 1 of 3 pages but datePublished is missing from all instances"

• Remediation: Article schema with dates helps AI systems assess content freshness:

  <script type="application/ld+json" dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: JSON.stringify({
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "BlogPosting",
    "headline": "Post title",
    "datePublished": "2026-04-02",
    "dateModified": "2026-04-02",
    "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Author Name" }
  })}} />
  

  For comprehensive structured data coverage, the Advanced SEO audit covers schema validation in depth.