Date given with info: operator?

[FranticFish]

When I query Google with info:example.com the date is 15th April 2016
When I click the link to view the cache for exanple.com the cache date is 30th October.

The info: operator is still on Google's official search operator's page.

What is the significance of the date given for info: - it is not the date last crawled, and the snippet (meta descripton) given is from the cached version not as it was back in April.

Any ideas anyone?

[goodroi]

Using site: or info: is not a great way to gain the most accurate information from Google. Google knows that mostly SEOs use those operators and not the general public so they are less concerned about giving good information. If you want more accurate information about last crawl date you might want to look at your own log files.

[Robert Charlton]

FranticFish... to make this easier to follow, here's a typical result for info:example.com...

Google can show you the following information for this URL:

Show Google's cache of example.com
- Find web pages that are similar to example.com
- Find web pages that link to example.com
- Find web pages from the site example.com
- Find web pages that contain the term "example.com"

It's worth noting that there's a variety of data types, possibly pulled from a variety of "layers" in Google's index.

Regarding this, you asked...

When I query Google with info:example.com the date is 15th April 2016
When I click the link to view the cache for exanple.com the cache date is 30th October.

To make sure my understanding is in agreement with your description, when you say "date" and "cache date", I'm assuming the following...
- that in the 15th April case, you are talking about the date you get when you click Google's cache as returned by the info: operator, in the top line...

Show Google's cache of example.com

- and that in the 30th October case, you are talking about the cache date you get when you query Google directly for example.com

The cache, as you probably know, isn't generated live from the site displayed in the serp. It used to come from a different data center than the serps did. Now, I believe it comes from a different layer of servers within the Google index infrastructure. I'm not sure their physical location matters much, but their function in Google's index does.

Some layers are updated more frequently than others... and, from the little I know about NoSQL databases, the assigment of layers would depend upon Google's need for the data of different types to be available in various forms, for different types and speeds of computation, etc.

Reporting functions are likely to be a low priority on this list... viz, the least fresh. Consistent with my understanding of what you describe of the info: operator, the cache date might essentially be a cache of a cache... or probably more accurately, the cache date comes from a different data layer than other parts of the cache.

Your report of inconsistencies in the matchup of cache dates and snippets is an interesting observation, I think, about how the data is sharded in Google and then reassembled when Google returns results for this particular operator. What's included in info: is a particularly unusual combination of data for Google, and the anomaly in reporting it is a characteristic of some NoSQL databases... Someone more familiar with NoSQL than I am would need to explain further.

The different caches I just viewed, though, all had yesterday's date... nothing as old as April. To some extent, also, there's likely to be a chance aspect to where in the indexing cycle certain layers are queried and combined.


I should add, btw, that I've never truly understood the point of the info: operator, but you might be able to explain it to us. Apparently, not all SEOs use it. My first and almost only encounter with the info: operator was in this thread...

"no information is available" message on info: operator search
Aug, 2015
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4761298.htm [webmasterworld.com]

It was an interesting puzzle, and I remember that results were different depending on www or no www, canonicalized, etc, but it wasn't clear to me what one might pick up from this grouping that caused Google to define it as an operator.

[FranticFish]

Thanks for replies both of you and sorry for the slow response I have not been able to check back for some time

@goodroi I don't have access to the log files, and that's not really what I'm interested about. Log files show crawl activity - they don't show whether you're indexed or not.

@Robert Charlton

... in the 15th April case, you are talking about the date you get when you click Google's cache

No. Clicking the 'Google's cache' link after making the info: query currently gives a date of 3rd November, whilst info: and site: still have a date of 15th April given at the start of the snippet for that url (the home page) ONLY. Thanks for additional information.

Querying Google shows that the given cache date and cached copy are up to date - certainly not the page in question as it was back in April. So I keep wondering what the significance was of the date given for the info: operator. This is the site's home page and the same date is also shown for a site: query - but only for that page, and not for any of the internal ones. If you run an info: query on an internal page then no date is given - for ANY of them.

I'm trying to understand the significance of a date now 7 months in the past being given for the home page only. It's not going to keep me up at night, but if it DOES mean something I'd like to know. The site previously had Analytics, but was registered with GSC on 15.03.16. Maybe that's a coincidence.

[besnette]

I am seeing the same thing - in the serps, the date next to many of my pages are like 2011, 2010 - really old, when those pages have been updated repeatedly over the years, and recently.

So the date in the description of the serp results is weird - where do you think this is coming from - it is truly way off from the cache date.

[lucsar]

@FranticFish and @FranticFish. As I said in another post what you're seeing with the date comes from the date of youtube videos embedded. I'm sure with the fact that an old date stamp is a factor that hurt the rankings. I've notice drops in the serps on all the pages that have youtube videos embedded and the date stamped at the beginning of the meta description in the SERPs. I only hope this is a short time bug.

Please let me have your opinion on that.

[besnette]

@lucsar I think you are right.

Looking at my pages where there is a date stamp in the serps, that seems to correspond to the date of the video released for that page.

And, it seems to be hurting some - which is a shame because those are very useful videos for my pages and audience.

On my homepage, one of my most popular videos is there, but it is an older video, but still highly relevant, so I hope this is a bug - seems to be.

[FranticFish]

Hi Luscar and Besnette - thanks for the suggestion. There is a video embedded in the page but the date is 20.05.16 and not 15.04.16.

Robert, sorry I missed your point about canonicalisation before - the date doesn't change or go whether you use the www. or not in the info: query. The site has a 301 correctly implemented from non-www. to www.

As for how I understand the operator, I couldn't add any more to Google's definition - "Get information about a web address, including the cached version of the page." The 'fetch as Googlebot' feature in WMT shows what is given up to be crawled. This operator shows the state of the index.

[lucsar]

I've made a test on a page. Removed the youtube video embedded (two days ago). Today the page regain all the previews positions on the serps and the data stamp is gone. The other pages with a youtube video embedded remain damaged. It seems a nosense. Let's test more.

[besnette]

Why would a youtube video cause a penalty? And, the time stamp is problematic, in that it can imply to users that the page hasn't been updated in a long time, which, for me isn't the case, my pages are updated frequently with new information and videos.

I also have multiple videos (my own) on some of my pages, and some are very new, but it is still pulling the oldest one for the date in the serps.

[lucsar]

Same here. The time stamp tells a user to avoid that page and search for something more updated.It must be a bug.

[besnette]

Here's a direct example about this.

I have a page, where I physically went to a business (I was invited), interviewed the owners, and did a video tour of their property. The video has had around 20,000 lifetime views, and it is from 2011. The business, and owners have not changed, and neither has their business.

I am the only one in my niche who has actually visited their property, and spoken to them personally. My page used to rank #1 and #2, but now is like #8 and has the 2011 time stamp.

The video is as relevant as ever, and the results above me -those folks probably haven't even stepped in the same state as the business I was invited to interview and do a video for. It does bug me that I spent so much time on it and now sites that auto-generate much of their content are above me.

So just because a video might be older does not mean it loses relevancy. I hope it's a temporary bug. Thanks everyone

[FranticFish]

I've tried some commercial terms for the site I'm looking at and found something interesting that might help you both.

Not all pages that have a video embedded have a timestamp in the SERPs. So, I would suggest trying to see if you can spot anything different, perhaps:
- the embed method ;
- whether the YouTube channel the video comes from is private or public;
- if public, date of last comment / like / dislike in YouTube,

Video is not the answer for me as the dates don't tally up BUT my page does have embedded Google maps. I need to do a bit more digging and I'll post back if I spot any patterns.

[lucsar]

@FranticFish Thanks. I'll have a look