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We have just put up a post, less than 2 hours ago. We usually rank pretty well, including in this case. Regardless, when I search on google.com for the post by name, it comes up as the first result.

However, it says the post is 2 days old, when it's no more than 2 hours old: enter image description here

I have the Schema.org markup done pretty well, and I just checked the dateCreated and datePublished and everything seems to be in order:

Deleted this image showing proper dateCreated and dateModified schema.org markup as I am only allowed to post 2 links per post

I know it's difficult to know why Google does what it does, but has anyone had this problem before? I don't think it's a common problem because no matter how I rephrase the question, I am finding 0 relevant results.

Any ideas on why this mislabeling of the article's publish date could be happening?

Update:

I just got the headers and everything seems to be correct:

Receiving Header:

HTTP/1.1·200·OK(CR)(LF)
Server:·nginx/1.9.12(CR)(LF)
Date:·Fri,·04·Mar·2016·03:01:32·GMT(CR)(LF)
Content-Type:·text/html;·charset=UTF-8(CR)(LF)
Content-Length:·133023(CR)(LF)
Connection:·close(CR)(LF)
Vary:·Accept-Encoding(CR)(LF)
X-Powered-By:·PHP/5.6.18(CR)(LF)
Vary:·Accept-Encoding,·Cookie(CR)(LF)
Cache-Control:·max-age=3,·must-revalidate(CR)(LF)
WP-Super-Cache:·Served·supercache·file·from·PHP(CR)(LF)
Last-Modified:·Thu,·03·Mar·2016·22:21:02·GMT(CR)(LF)
(CR)(LF)

I've looked everywhere I can think of for a time and then looked everywhere else and I can't find any leads.

Update 2

I believe the issue may have been hAtom (h-Atom) entries. This is my only solid lead.

The way I had the time displayed for these posts was "time that has passed since publishing," (eg, "2 hours ago"). The h-Atom markup was using this "time that has passed" time, rather than the proper ISO 8601 format UTC time (eg, 2016-03-06T19:48:15+00:00) I was outputting for the schema.org markup.

The time was like this: enter image description here

Now it's like this: enter image description here

I am suspecting this h-Atom marked up "time ago" time because I have 0 other leads. All metas, indexes, registrations, pings, headers and everything else I can think of and of the suggestions given here is and has been correct, 'cause that's just how I roll. Maybe Google somehow misunderstood "2 hours ago" to be some date or to be "2 days ago"? But of course, why wouldn't it properly parse "days" as "days"? :/ Again, no leads.

About 24 hours after I updated the h-Atom time to the ISO format, Google search results showed the proper time, and in this specific case, the time jumped from "5 days ago"(incorrect) to "2 days ago."

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  • 1
    I wrote this answer quite a while ago but it still applies. Mark-up is not on the list, however, it may be now. Who knows? I do not think Google is taking mark-up published dates for the SERPs. I have not seen anything new in this regard. Still, this answer may help. webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/59559/…
    – closetnoc
    Mar 3 '16 at 23:46
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Google will read your posts' rich snippet and based on your defined parameters it will be then shown in the SERP. If you can send us the link of your website it can help to find out the reason.

You can refer to Google's documentation here: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/rich-snippets/articles

Check that nothing is defined in your meta header tags blocking Google bots from reading the dates. Besides you have to be sure that you have verified your website into Google's webmaster tools.

I hope this helps.

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3
  • P.S. check your server timezone it's important as well.
    – WiTon Nope
    Mar 4 '16 at 1:04
  • Thank you! Sorry I didnt comment right away, I really didn't think I could. I posted the link to the page in my answer update. I've looked everywhere but I can't find anything out of place.
    – Andre Bulatov
    Mar 4 '16 at 5:28
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    Ahhh, I gotta get use to commenting -- I posted a response to you in answer and someone appropriately edited it out due to nature of link. If you're still interested, earmilk.com/2016/03/03/how-sasha-grey-blew-my-musical-mind.
    – Andre Bulatov
    Mar 4 '16 at 19:09
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To me this is probably due to http headers information coming from your servers response. Check the URL into any tool that will tell you the header information. Check Rex Swain's HTTP Viewer

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  • The two most commonly used dates used in Google SERPs are the inception date (date Google discovers the page) and/or the header response date. It is possible, just guessing here, that the post was started a couple of days ago (date wise and not counting the hours) and completed and posted today. I do not know WP, but for some CMS, this would make sense given how some work.
    – closetnoc
    Mar 4 '16 at 4:50
  • Titico, thank you. I just got the headers but everything seems to be correct: Please see my answer update. PS: sorry I didnt comment at first, I didnt realize I could. @closetnoc -- good theory but with WP, there is a "Draft" status which means the post is not visible to any one and has not yet been created. Once it's published, it hits the web.
    – Andre Bulatov
    Mar 4 '16 at 5:27

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