Re: date in search results

In message <8d6444cb56.jim@6.abbeypress.net>
Jim Nagel <netsurf@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