Google date tag

If it is missing does this mean no Googlebot crawling my site?

[bigace]

I just noticed that every listing on the first page of the serps for one of my Keywords has a date tag on it except mine. I have been number one for this term for more than a year. What does this mean? Usually just the first 2 or 3 listings have the date tag. Also, since they stated the dating I have always been dated if anyone was dated.

[futureX]

Have you been updating? And what is your PR?

[nadsab]

I'm interested too in info on this since the crawl is coming up. Can someone post a URL here for info on the google date tag, what it does, why use it, etc?

[garylo]

Usually just the first 2 or 3 listings have the date tag

The date tag usually goes to sites that are changed frequently and has a higher PR. As far as I know it does not affect the ranking of sites.

[futureX]

Google's date tag is a way of telling you when tha page was last visited and updated it. The freshbot visits sites that update often and/or have a high pagerank. The pages That get freshbotted on my site are the ones that I update regularly (daily).

Uusally if your site has a fresh tag it means it has been looked at by the freshbot and updated, however the changes might not stay there for more than a day or two until the next major update.

[nadsab]

Thanks futureX,

I read on the "6th April fresh tags" thread here this morning that if I have a fresh tag and was fresh botted, that it should be at least a week before the next deep crawl. Is this true or can a deep crawl come even a day or two after a freshbot?

[bigace]

I must be stupid. If freshbot usually crawls only the sites that have new content added. How does it know if there is new content before it crawls the site. In other words. It sounds like what is being said here is: "what comes first the chicken or the egg." Freshbot only crawls the sites with fresh content or Freshbot knows which sites have fresh content because it crawled the site. Does it crawl to discover which sites have new content or does it crawl only the sites with new content. Clarification please?

[finoo]

Freshbot crawls all sites, and if it see fresh content it will show a fresh tag in the index.. and calculate a new ranking.

How deep freshbot crawls will depend on the PR of the site.

[bigace]

That sounds like a sensible answer. Thank you. However I change the content of my site several times each day so if freshbot is crawling every site and date tagging those with changes in content, why am I not seeing any date tags. As I ask at the start of this thread, does this indicate some other potential problem with my site? As mentioned I have always had date tags as long as they have existed.

I just had a name change and 301 permanant redirected my site to a new URL. I also have had 100s of the links changed by the linking Webmasters. It was indicated here at WebmasterWorld that the Page Rank(6) as well as links that hadn't been changed would likely pass through at least for the first one or two updates. Since the latest update hasn't occured yet, I was concerned that the lack of Freshbot date tags might indicate that I could anticipate some serious problems with my SERPS when this update finally occurs.

Any one have an opinion on this situation. Googanoia is setting in :-( (word: Googanoia copywrited by bigace 4/6/03)