7/6/2018 How to Find the Publish Date of Any Web Content

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How to Find the Publish Date of Any Web

Content
David Atlas

Today we’re learning how to nd the publication dates of undated web content.
We’ll explore a small handful of quickly actionable tips. We’ll also learn why
hiding your content date is bad user experience design.

Doesn’t it piss you o f when websites don’t display the publication dates on
their content? Some go as far as removing dates from their comment
section, leaving no doubt that their audience is the least of their worries.

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Friends don’t mislead friends!

Do you wonder why they do it? I mean wouldn’t it be the most basic service
in the world to make dates clear to your audience?

So why do some websites hide content dates

anyway, when it’s terrible UX?

Because they hate people.

Kidding. It’s because they know that people have a time-bias

Fresh and recent content is more attractive than old. People assume that
older content is less valuable. Even though there is plenty of old content
that is still valuable (o ten more valuable).

Before we move on to why removing dates makes you a terrible person, let
me show you how to nd the publish date on any blasphemous site.

How to nd publish dates on web

pages
ere is a handful of ways to work around hidden content dates on
websites. You can’t always use the same approach. It depends on the
platform, and some website owners are more sneaky than others.

I always end up nding the content date with one of the following
methods. I list them in the order: from most likely to work — to the least.

Finitimus — a Chrome Extension (small browser app).

Check the page source code

e Google date lter trick

Use e Way Back Machine

Look at the URL & Comments section

Let’s go through them one by one.

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1. The Finitimus Chrome Extension

e Finitimus Chrome Extension takes 5 seconds to install and it works
right away. Once installed, go to any website an click on the Finitimus icon
in the Chrome App bar, and it will show the content date:

How reliable is Finitimus? Well if you compare Medium’s publication date

with Finitimus’s estimated date on the screenshots above, they’re one day
apart. ere could be many reasons for that.

It’s close enough for me. I’ve tested Finitimus on at least 10 di ferent sites,
and it’s been reliable so far.

But not everyone wants to install an app for every problem they have. If you
rarely need to nd hidden publication dates, then skip the app and move
on to one of the manual methods.

2. Check the page source code

In my experience, you will nd the publication date inside the content
page’s source code, 9 out of 10 times. Right-click anywhere on the content
page with the hidden date and click on View Page Source.

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Now inside the page source code, hit up the page search function with
CMD + F (Mac) or CTRL + F (Windows). Now, search for anything related to
publication, e.g. “published”. e date will usually be at the top of the page
source inside meta tags:

e date is o ten wrapped inside a meta tag:

<meta property="article:published_time" content="2014-04-06T20:59:23+00:00" />

Or inside a time tag:

<time datetime="2017-05-12" itemprop="datePublished">12 May, 2017</time>

Still can’t nd the publish date? On to the next tip then!

3. The Google Date Filter Trick

Google’s search engine has a built-in feature that allows you to lter
content by dates. By using the following format you should be able to nd
the publication date (or at least the latest update) on any content.

Go to this Google date lter query page:

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https://www.google.com/search?as_qdr=y10&q=inurl%3A

en paste in the URL to the content with the hidden publish date into the
search input, right a ter inurl: and hit enter.

And you get the date:

If you want to change the number of years it lters back from, change the
qdr=y10 to e.g. qdr=y15 then it’s 15 years.

You can also just put everything on one line and paste it directly into your
address bar:

https://www.google.com/search?
as_qdr=y10&q=inurl%3Ahttps://techstacker.com/posts/ttDuoXKkNyx6Yqz5X/building-
a-get-viewport-dimensions-app-with-vanilla

Here’s me querying this tutorial from TechStacker, by combining the

Google search lter URL with the URL to my tutorial:

4. The Wayback Machine

e Wayback Machine is useful for many things. Such as nding out how a
website used to look 10-15 years or even longer ago. e Wayback Machine
only takes snapshots every now and then, so it won’t give you precise dates.
But it will o ten show you the period that content was originally published.

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Go to e Wayback Machine and paste the URL to your targetted content

and it will return a list of dates, like this:

How reliable is the Wayback Machine? Well, in the screenshot above, e

Wayback Machine highlights two dates in September 2017, for this great
article by Jonathan Z. White. e only problem is that the article was
published May 17, 2016 — more than a year earlier. I couldn’t nd any
snapshots from 2016 for that post.

What’s going on? What the snapshots of September 2017 might mean is
that the article was updated or perhaps republished around that time. It’s
impossible to say for sure. us, the Wayback Machine is the last method
I’ll use for nding hidden dates.

5. Look at the URL & Comments section

e nal two methods are quick to check for, but not likely to work at a
broad range of websites, that’s why I put them last.

Check the URL

Especially on a lot of WordPress websites, you can nd the publication date
or period in the URL path of the post:

But I see dates in URLs less and less.

Check the comments section

If the site has a comments section you can o ten get a pretty good idea
about how old the content is based on the comment dates. But some site
owners hide their comment dates also — and many sites don’t have a
comments section.

In my experience, method 1, 2, and 3 is all I need.

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Congratulations, blasphemy has been defeated. You are

now well equipped to nd hidden post dates on
decadent websites.

If you’re not a website owner and don’t plan on publishing content then the
rest of this post might not interest you. Otherwise, keep reading for the
sake of humanity!

***

Why you should not hide

publication dates
In Tech, showing content dates is important because it’s the most
expanding and changing industry in the world. Many types of technology
get outdated quickly. Either we adapt or we lose.

SEO and, tech in general, are usually time-sensitive topics.

For example, the best SEO methods of 2014 are not the same best SEO
methods in 2017. In fact, older SEO tactics can be hurtful to your website
if you apply them today.

Search engines constantly update their search algorithms and policies, if

you don’t keep up you’ll get into trouble. us, it’s pretty ridiculous when
tech-related websites go out of their way to hide dates from their audience
when it could potentially hurt them.

When you remove publication dates one of two things happen:

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Some people will immediately get pissed (that’s me) and bounce.

Others will initially get tricked to assume that your content is fresh, so
they won’t take o f right away. Once they realize they’ve been duped,
they’ll get angry that you wasted their time — the biggest o fender in
the UX rulebook. And then they take o f.

Both are terrible scenarios. Don’t do it.

Website owners: update your content!

e simple solution is to update your existing content so it matches the
current standards. Whether it’s SEO, programming, or something else),
and clearly state it in your articles/guides.

Like this:

Last Update: December 5th, 2017.

Not only will it bene t your audience, it will also bene t your SEO because
updating is a relevancy ranking signal according to Google. If you update
your content, search engines will recognize it the next time they crawl and
index your website. Updating is good for everybody.

You can also republish old content if updating the old content is too
complicated. It depends on what platform your original content is
published on. Sometimes republishing is the best choice.

How should you display your content dates?

I don’t believe there is one best way, but I do believe in A/B testing and
taking a page out of successful people’s books.

Some of you know that I’m a fan of Tim Ferriss. Tim also “hides” dates
from his content, but he does it in a non-shitty way.

He puts dates at the bottom of his articles. He does this because of the
time-bias we discussed earlier. He talked about it in his presentation:

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How to Build a High Tra c Blog Without Killing Yourself.

Here’s why the Tim Ferriss way of hiding dates doesn’t hurt UX:

His website is mostly based on timeless, philosophical and principle

based content. Most of his content is relevant regardless of age.

He doesn’t hide content dates, he puts them at the bottom of each post.
A/B testing concluded that it gives more upsides than downsides (few
people complain).

Somewhat surprisingly he actually shows content dates in the URL

path. But Tim is one of the few people who I trust to have A/B tested
every square inch of his website, so there’s probably a reason.

ere’s a big di ference between moving dates from the top to the bottom of
a post vs. completely hiding it from your page.

Hey, you’re not a bad person because you don’t want visitors to discard
your aging content (which might still be relevant). But if your content is
time-sensitive, and you don’t update it, and you purposely hide dates from
your audience.. well, it’s a great idea if you want people to hate you.

I considered putting dates at the bottom of my posts. But I’m leaning more
towards keeping it at the top, and then switching the time stamp
“published on” to “Latest Update”.

I have an idea:

Keep content date at the top of the post: if your content is time-
sensitive. Remember to update it — or you’ll lose readers (but at least
you’re honest). If you update: display the latest update date!

Move content date to the bottom of the post: if your content doesn’t get
updated o ten — but is still relevant and doesn’t mislead people.

Mind-blowingly obvious!

e glory of UX has been restored!

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Conclusion
Hiding dates on outdated content will at best piss of your readers. At worst
it’ll end up hurting them. Get o f the couch and update your content or
throw in the towel and delete your shameful website.

Has this article been helpful? Let me know in the comments! Any
criticism is welcome. We’re all here to learn!

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ab11lk 9 days ago

ank you for the tricks. But I wish this was time stamped too.

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