Dates for old questions in Google search

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

Was searching in Google today and was surprised it found several posts dated October 2016. But when I opened them (exhibit A), they were actually old 2009 questions. There is no visible sign of update after 2009, so I'm wondering what gives?

I guess this has something to do with moving old stuff to Archive, but then only some posts have a wrong date, many others correctly show earlier dates.

Unfortunately, this seriously skews the Google search results as I always look for newer posts when it comes to ABAP questions. What was true in 2009 is sometimes no longer valid in 2017.

[jerryjanda]

Not sure who can best address this one. Let me look into it...

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

Just following up on the old question. I'm still seeing the same effect - the dates shown in a simple Google search are incorrect.

Has anyone looked into this? Is this a problem with Google?

[VeselinaPeykova · Accepted solution]

No an expert on the topic (I rarely use Google for searching), but there is a difference in displayed dates for the same discussions depending on the usage of site: operator.

Without site: operator:

With site: operator:

The discussion that I marked is: https://archive.sap.com/discussions/thread/3926611

From what I see the last update was on June, 30, 2016.

I found an old discussion on the topic - Google Shows the Indexing Date for Each Search Result, where some noted that the feature had some flaws. Who knows, maybe this date display is still a problem.

If this is a problem with Google itself I doubt that there is much that the IT team could do about it.

[Jelena_Perfiljeva · Accepted solution]

Interesting... I was wondering if this was some new problem because I didn't notice this before. But this might as well be because 95% of the time I search with site:sap.com.

Thanks for finding this!

[lucas_costa3]

Wow this is concerning.. especially because I guess most people rather use google as search engine for SCN related stuff than SCN search itself.

My modus operandi is always google... subject.... + site:sap.com

And just adding to your findings, when you include the date filter those results do not come up.

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

I do the same thing, that's why it was alarming. I don't use SCN search because Google is faster and easier. Also if I don't find anything with "site" addition, I just remove it to search elsewhere on the same screen. It's much more efficient IMHO.