Show modified date in google results

[benniledl]

Trac Ticket: https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7410

Show modified date in google results rather published date

[dd32]

Copying my comment from the linked trac ticket to here.

I suspect this is google picking up the first element on the page.
The sitemap is correct:

https://developer.wordpress.org/sitemap-2.xml

1227 https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_the_modified_date/ 2023-11-08T01:35:16Z

And the only place the 2014 date shows is:

$ curl -is https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_the_modified_date/ | grep 2014
<div class="wp-block-post-date"><time datetime="2014-04-25T06:04:56+00:00">April 25, 2014</time></div>

If it's indeed using the element, maybe we need to add a rel attribute or something to it, such that it picks up the right one.

$ curl -is https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_the_modified_date/ | grep '<time'
<div class="wp-block-post-date"><time datetime="2014-04-25T06:04:56+00:00">April 25, 2014</time></div>
<div class="wp-block-post-date__modified-date wp-block-post-date"><time datetime="2023-11-08T01:35:16+00:00">November 8, 2023</time></div>

Likely easiest fix is adding Structured Data (<script type="application/ld+json">), see https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/publication-dates

[dd32]

Flipping the order of the <time> elements may also work, but I'm not sure if that's a 100% fix

[jonoalderson]

There's no way to control the date that Google shows in SERPs.
Managing the metadata and constructing some schema would definitely help, but that'll take some scoping. Leave it with me.