It checks the places where publish and update dates are commonly declared: meta tags such as article:published_time and article:modified_time, HTML time elements with a datetime attribute, schema.org markup using datePublished and dateModified (in microdata or JSON-LD), and visible date patterns in the page text. It reports whether a published date and a modified date were found and shows the detected values so you can verify your dates are machine-readable.

For many queries, yes. Google applies a 'freshness' factor more strongly to topics that change over time — news, pricing, software, statistics, and how-to content tied to current versions. Evergreen topics rely on it less. A page that has not been meaningfully updated in years can lose ground to fresher competitors on time-sensitive queries, which is why surfacing and updating stale content is a core SEO maintenance task.

This tool flags pages where no machine-readable modified date is found, or where the most recent detected date is well in the past, as candidates for review. Staleness is contextual: a reference page may be fine for years, while a 'best tools' list a year old likely needs refreshing. Treat the flag as a prompt to check whether the information, examples, and dates are still accurate, not as proof the content is bad.

No. Updating a visible or schema date without genuinely improving the content is a deceptive practice that can erode trust and, if patterns are detected, hurt you. Refresh the substance — verify facts, update examples and statistics, add new sections — and then update the dates to reflect that real change. An honest modified date paired with meaningful updates is what earns the freshness benefit.

The published date is when the page first went live; the modified (or updated) date is the last time it was meaningfully changed. Search engines can show either in results, and a recent modified date signals active maintenance. Best practice is to expose both in your markup — keep the original published date for context and update the modified date whenever you substantively revise the page.

Many pages display a date visually but never expose it in a machine-readable format like a time element or schema, so crawlers cannot reliably read it. If the tool reports no date despite one being visible on the page, that is a fixable SEO gap: add datePublished and dateModified to your Article schema and use a time element with a datetime attribute so search engines can confidently associate a date with your content.

There is no universal interval — it depends on the topic. Review time-sensitive pages at least every few months, and evergreen reference content once or twice a year to confirm accuracy. Use this checker periodically across your important pages to find ones lacking recent dates, then prioritize refreshing those that target competitive, time-sensitive queries first.