9:54 p.m.
What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display) a
DATE in search results?
For instance, search for "Terran site:iconbar.com" -- some of the
items listed show a date and some don't.
If I ran the world, *every* item would show a date. So often one
wants current information, not waste time on stuff from 2001. But
sometimes historical stuff is indeed what is sought.
So state date. I've long wondered what the mechanism is.
--
Jim Nagel www.archivemag.co.uk
|| See you at the show? www.riscos-swshow.co.uk Feb 24
12:57 a.m.
In message <8d6444cb56.jim(a)6.abbeypress.net>
Jim Nagel <netsurf(a)abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:
What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display)
a
DATE in search results?
If I ran the world, *every* item would show a date. So often one
wants current information, not waste time on stuff from 2001.
But sometimes historical stuff is indeed what is sought.
I am not big on conspiracy theories, but here is one with a lot of
personal experience to support it.
Google is reluctant to return pages with old data. In the beginning
Google worked by trying to answer queries. Now it uses every query as
an excuse to present pages that can be monetised.
Search for a line of a poem and a few years ago you would get a series
of hits about the poem and the poet.
Now you get a load of crap consisting of references to YouTube videos
for songs with lyrics that contain fragments the searched for quote.
In the advanced serch options Google used to have an option to search
by a range of dates. This has been removed from the mobile a desktop
versions.
Who is likely to want to pay for advert to pop up on a page that was
last updated a long time ago?
--
John Rickman
4:55 a.m.
In article <322755cb56.John@rickman.argonet..co.uk>, John Rickman
<rickman(a)argonet.co.uk> wrote:
In message <8d6444cb56.jim(a)6.abbeypress.net> Jim Nagel
<netsurf(a)abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:
> What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not
display) a
> DATE in search results?
Luck. And a date at the top of the page, as a letter would have.
[Snip]
Google is reluctant to return pages with old data. In the beginning
Google worked by trying to answer queries. Now it uses every query as
an excuse to present pages that can be monetised.
Another leg on that conspiratorial stool: is it a good idea to put Google
Ads on your own pages because Google will favour them? (But make sure you
use an ad blocker yourself!)
[Snip]
In the advanced serch options Google used to have an option to
search
by a range of dates. This has been removed from the mobile a desktop
versions.
#FakeNews. ;-) It is still on desktops.
www.google.com/advanced_search
It's the eighth parameter on that page.
Who is likely to want to pay for advert to pop up on a page that was
last updated a long time ago?
Advertising placement doesn't work like that. The advert is grabbed from
a pool as the page is being viewed; it's value is on being viewed now,
and what words it contains, not necessarily how old it may be.
It's easy to fake those dates anyway. Only things like
http://web.archive.org/ give a true idea of page's age as it keeps a note
of when things are fetched.
There is another huge factor which has pushed many older pages further
down all search results. Mobile compatibility. Even if your content is
not specifically expecting mobile users (e.g. any RISC OS specific site!)
your web pages won't appear high in the results if they don't work on a
phone against pages that do. This is because mobile use of the web
overtook desktops in November 2016 and Google changed their policy to
prioritise mobile-friendly content.
(Yes, perhaps it is a bit odd. Desktop search results have non-mobile
content 'suppressed' even though a desktop user isn't looking for mobile
content.)
Your mention of YouTube is illustrative. It works on every size of
display; most old websites don't. YT is also Google's own site, obviously.
For registered webmasters, Google search helpfully displays your own page
results with "This page is not mobile friendly" if that applies. (Too
bloody often, tbh).
I'd like to think all RISC OS webmasters are feeding their sites into
http://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly/ and gradually fixing this
but they are obviously not(!). However, with no serious mobile-friendly
competition, there is little incentive for RISC OS specific web sites to
improve. Perhaps young people will, in frustration, write their own
mobile-friendly RISC OS websites. :-o
I know from personal experience that (e.g.) a site which uses large fixed
widths for layout or - perish the thought - tables for non-tabular
information, or even just large images, iframes, frames or small buttons
too close together, it is a whole lot of fun trying to make content work
and look okay on both an iPhone 5 with a 320px wide screen and a
3840x2160 4K display.
T
--
Tim Hill
timil.com : tjrh.eu : butterwick.eu : blue-bike.uk : youngtheatre.co.uk
1:29 a.m.
In message <56cb6af6b5tim(a)timil.com>
Tim Hill <tim(a)timil.com> wrote:
> In the advanced serch options Google used to have an option to
search
> by a range of dates. This has been removed from the mobile a desktop
> versions.
#FakeNews. ;-) It is still on desktops.
It's the eighth parameter on that page.
The parameter is still there, but
The drop down list offers ->
anytime
past 24 hours
past week
past month
past year
The default is anytime which is heavily weighted in favour of new
stuff.
The option which allowed you to specify a date range has been removed.
John
--
John Rickman
6:04 a.m.
In article <8b087de156.John@rickman.argonet..co.uk>, John Rickman
<rickman(a)argonet.co.uk> wrote:
In message <56cb6af6b5tim(a)timil.com> Tim Hill
<tim(a)timil.com> wrote:
[Snip]
The option which allowed you to specify a date range has been
removed.
They've removed it from there now too?
Isn't that typical?. You have to perform a search and then modify it, at
least, in other browsers:
1. make a google search.
2. on the results page look for "Tools"
3. now select 'Any time' -> Custom range, pick your dates.
So much for 'advanced' search! Easier to make a simple one and change it.
But that doesn't help NetSurf users, unfortunately.
--
Tim Hill
timil.com : tjrh.eu : butterwick.eu : blue-bike.uk : youngtheatre.co.uk
6:26 a.m.
On 31 Mar, tim(a)timil.com wrote:
In article <8b087de156.John@rickman.argonet..co.uk>, John
Rickman
<rickman(a)argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <56cb6af6b5tim(a)timil.com> Tim Hill <tim(a)timil.com> wrote:
[Snip]
> The option which allowed you to specify a date range has been
removed.
They've removed it from there now too?
Isn't that typical?. You have to perform a search and then modify
it,
at least, in other browsers:
1. make a google search.
2. on the results page look for "Tools"
3. now select 'Any time' -> Custom range, pick your dates.
So much for 'advanced' search! Easier to make a simple one
and change
it.
But that doesn't help NetSurf users, unfortunately.
P.S. Being curious, I have just been reading about the search parameter
'daterange' and the example given by Google is if you want to examine
documents with a modification date in a range you would search for
parrot daterange:2008-08-01..2008-12-24
ie.
http://google.com/search?q=parrot+daterange:2008-08-01..2008-12-24
But it doesn't seem to work. It's just gets your RISC OS box blocked from
making Google searches and you can't click on the message response
proving you're a human. Using their own example. Duh.
--
Tim Hill
timil.com : tjrh.eu : butterwick.eu : blue-bike.uk : youngtheatre.co.uk
1:09 a.m.
In article <8d6444cb56.jim(a)6.abbeypress.net>, Jim Nagel
<netsurf(a)abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:
What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display)
a
DATE in search results?
For instance, search for "Terran site:iconbar.com" -- some
of the
items listed show a date and some don't.
Those with a date seem to have it in the page following the word
"updated" as many news stories do elsewhere. I can't say that would be of
much use to many of my pages, but gives me an idea.
If I ran the world, *every* item would show a date. So often one
wants current information, not waste time on stuff from 2001. But
sometimes historical stuff is indeed what is sought.
A pity there is no standard for a document's date or last revision date,
isn't it?
We should be using something like a meta tag with name 'published' or
'revised'; perhaps 'updated'. But whatever you use, it needs to appear in
the body of a page for a search engine to take notice.
Unfortunately, the way these dates are grabbed off a page are not
particularly useful in some circumstances.
So state date. I've long wondered what the mechanism is.
A search result dates this page as 25th July 1982, showing that the date
is grabbed off the page without intelligence: it demonstrates only that
such dates are not particularly useful.
www.youngtheatre.co.uk/archive/harrow/productions.php
There are different publication and build dates in the meta tags which
tells me I need to look into this more, thanks for bringing it up.
I'm going to add "updated: [date]" to my RISC OS page(s) which are
currently undergoing a re-vamp.....Done. (~24 pages changed with one edit
to read and 'print' the last modification date of the relevant part of
the page. Got to love PHP.)
--
Tim Hill
timil.com : tjrh.eu : butterwick.eu : blue-bike.uk : youngtheatre.co.uk
1:29 a.m.
On 16 February 2018 12:54:04 GMT+00:00, Jim Nagel <netsurf(a)abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:
What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display) a
DATE in search results?
For instance, search for "Terran site:iconbar.com" -- some of the
items listed show a date and some don't.
Do a search for "Google structured data".
Chris
4:14 a.m.
In message <8d6444cb56.jim(a)6.abbeypress.net>
Jim Nagel <netsurf(a)abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:
What causes Google (or other searchers) to display (or not display)
a
DATE in search results?
For instance, search for "Terran site:iconbar.com" -- some
of the
items listed show a date and some don't.
There is an option which may help for recent "stuff". On every
platform (mobile and desktop) the Google search results page has a
"ribbon" of options below the search box (web, image, video etc.) and
if you go to the right hand end of this is "Search tools". (You may
need to scroll right on mobile platforms.)
Clicking on "Search tools" introduces another "ribbon" on which one of
the options is "Any time". Clicking on this brings up a choice of Past
hour/past 24 hours/past week/past month/past year and filters the
results on the page.
Unfortunately "Search tools" isn't present on Netsurf. Instead the
date choices are present by default in the left hand column on the
actual delivered page.
One up for Risc OS!
--
Chris Shepheard writing as himself
chris.shepheard(a)chrispics.co.uk
from far west Surrey www.chrispics.co.uk
2006
days inactive
2049
days old
netsurf-users@netsurf-browser.org
8 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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Tim Hill