Blog posts and articles have datePublished and dateModified in schema

Blog posts and articles without datePublished in schema-org BlogPosting are ineligible for date display in SERPs, which reduces click-through rate for time-sensitive content. Search engines use dateModified to determine crawl priority — pages without it are treated as stale after initial indexing, regardless of actual content freshness. A dateModified value earlier than datePublished is a schema error that signals unreliable metadata to indexers. For editorial sites where recency is a ranking signal, missing or inconsistent dates are a systematic findability disadvantage against competitors who maintain accurate temporal metadata.

Source date fields from the same frontmatter or database record that populates the UI — never hardcode them separately in schema. In app/blog/[slug]/page.tsx, generate the BlogPosting schema from the post's metadata:

export default function BlogPost({ post }: { post: Post }) {
  const schema = {
    '@context': 'https://schema.org',
    '@type': 'BlogPosting',
    headline: post.title,
    datePublished: post.publishedAt, // '2024-01-15T10:00:00Z'
    dateModified: post.updatedAt ?? post.publishedAt,
    author: { '@type': 'Person', name: post.author },
  }
  return (
    <script
      type="application/ld+json"
      dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: JSON.stringify(schema) }}
    />
  )
}

Both dates must be ISO 8601 with timezone (Z or offset). Add a CI assertion that dateModified >= datePublished to catch data pipeline errors before they reach production.

• ID: content-dating

• Severity: low

• What to look for: Count all blog post and article pages. For each, check the JSON-LD schema or page metadata for datePublished and dateModified fields. Verify dates are in ISO 8601 format and that dateModified is not earlier than datePublished. Enumerate which posts have both fields, which have only datePublished, and which have neither.

• Pass criteria: At least 90% of blog posts include datePublished in ISO 8601 format, and at least 50% of posts updated after initial publication include dateModified. Dates are chronologically consistent (dateModified >= datePublished). Report: "X of Y blog posts have datePublished; Z of W updated posts have dateModified."

• Fail criteria: Fewer than 90% of blog posts have datePublished, or dates are not in ISO 8601 format, or dateModified is earlier than datePublished.

• Skip (N/A) when: Project has no blog or article pages.

• Detail on fail: "3 of 10 blog posts lack datePublished in schema" or "dateModified on /blog/post-5 is 2023-01-01, earlier than datePublished 2024-06-15".

• Remediation: Add date schema to blog post components in app/blog/[slug]/page.tsx:

  export const metadata = {
    other: {
      'ld+json': JSON.stringify({
        '@context': 'https://schema.org',
        '@type': 'BlogPosting',
        datePublished: '2024-01-15T10:00:00Z',
        dateModified: '2024-02-20T15:30:00Z',
      }),
    },
  }