I don't understand Google's Cache Date

[devitnow]

I have removed some pages from my site. I understand how the page can still be in Google's index for months and months to come.

But what I don't understand is that if you look at the cache, it shows the old page and a cache date that is after the date the file was removed.

The cache date should show a date prior to the file removal.

Is this common? Should I care?

Thanks,

Devvy

[amol_v_naik]

Its ok, no problem, it happens some times.

[Jalinder]

I noticed Google show more recent Cache Dates than the actual date on which the page was crawled. This is more common with about us/contact us type pages that are usually linked from footer and do not change often.

[SFReader]

I believe that Jalinder is correct. The date is crawled date, not cache date.

Keith

[doc_z]

I've seen the same problem [webmasterworld.com] - at least 4 weeks difference between the cache date shown and the date of the cache.

[Jalinder]

Well all my pages have a date on top right. So whatever the cache date Google shows, I know the exact date and time when the page was crawled by viewing the cache.

I'd say most times cache date matches, but for pages linked from footer and those that do not change much Google does show a recent cache date while the actual crawl date is much older.

[chasing something]

one of my pages showed a cache date of 1589 or something like that one time..i thought that was odd..lol

[steveb]

The fresh dates and the actual cache have been screwed up for a few weeks now, but that doesn't answer the original question.

[devitnow]

ok, thanks for the info.

So things can be messed up with dates, and the date shown is the crawl date and not the date of the page.

Even so, why does my page show up which is not there? It was removed weeks before the crawl date. It seems like it visited the page, didn't find it and then placed in cache the last known copy.

Devvy