Dates on Homepage

Hi @wpmainlogin,

Could you please share a link to your site and let me know exactly where you see the information about the last update after Googling?

I don’t think that Google uses the time tag in their search results but I’m also not clear on where they display information about a site’s last update (I wasn’t able to find it in my testing).

If you can clarify, I’ll help out from there.

Hi Siobhan,

The website is shouty dot com. You can type in “shouty” in search results in Google.com and it should be on the 3rd or 4th page, or go here https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ashouty.com and it will be first.

You will notice in the search results snippet, the date is October 4 (the date of the last blog post), but new comics were posed on October 9, 11, 14, and 18 and in spite of that, the date that Google shows is October 4. This affects search rankings as they think the website is not being updated. On Monday I even hid the blog post from the homepage but that didn’t make a difference. (You will have to inspect the page to see that the blog post on the homepage is still there but hidden with CSS.)

For some reason Google is only recognizing new blog posts as updates to the website, not new comic postings. That is why I think it is due to the HTML difference in format and syntax of the dates in a blog vs a comic.

Thank you for your help.

Thank you so much for clarifying, @wpmainlogin. What an awesome domain name, as well! ??

I did a bit of digging but couldn’t find any concrete guidance on how Google detects the date in its search results.

I think you’re right, though, that a good step is to use the same code that’s used to display the date of the posts for the comics.

The first step to do that is for you to set up a child theme.

In case you’re unsure, the following guides provide a good introduction to child themes, including steps to set one up:

• https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Child_Themes
• https://wordpress.tv/2015/05/12/kathryn-presner-getting-comfortable-with-child-themes/

After you have completed that step, copy the parent’s content-comic.php file to your child theme’s directory and then open it in your favourite text/code editor.

Locate the following code in that file:

<?php echo get_the_date(); ?>

Replace the above with the following function:

<?php panel_posted_on(); ?>

Next, repeat the above steps with the archive-jetpack-comic.php file.

Save your changes, and you’ll see that the HTML surrounding the dates on your comics is the same as your posts. Give it a few days after making those changes to see if Google then start picking up the dates for your comics.

@siobhyb! Thank you so much for the compliment and solution. I’ve implemented it on my child theme and do indeed see the change in how the dates are shown in the code. Unless the thread is closed, I will come back here to update in a few days once I’ve seen how Google treats my website. Thanks again!

Perfect, @wpmainlogin.

I’m interested to know whether that makes a difference or not.

Ok, so far, it has not changed the date on the blog. It still has October 4 – even though I’ve continued to post comics, Google thinks I have not updated my blog since then.

I am now wondering if it has to do with the XML sitemap? My site map is at my domain and then “/sitemap_index.xml”. It has posts and jetpack-comic listed separately and I’m wondering if Google just looks at the posts.

I have a thread open in Google Webmasters but no one has helped. I will ping it. https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/h_Xhi51YdFU

Hi @wpmainlogin,

I chatted with a colleague who knows a lot about SEO and the way Google displays sites about your issue. It seems the problem here is that there isn’t and structured data being generated to enable Google to pick up a date for your comics. This structured data can usually be found in a site’s <header>.

A plugin such as Schema may help you workaround this issue. As you have Yoast installed, make sure that the option next to “Date in Snippet Preview” is checked under SEO > Titles and Metas > Comics.

If that doesn’t help then it’ll be best to wait to see if you get an answer back from Google.

@siobhyb, thank you so much! I am so glad you spoke to your colleague. Many, many thanks. I made that change in Yoast – I did not have that option checked for the comics (or posts either).

I also downloaded Schema but I will not activate it yet, as I want to see the impact of this change first.

I can update this thread in a bit to let you know – but if you have to close it out, I understand too. Google webmasters forum – no one has responded so I don’t have much hope there. Thank you again! And please thank your colleague too.

You’re welcome! I hope you’re able to get this one figured out. ??

Thank you! So, I made that SEO Yoast change a couple of days ago and was able to see pretty quickly that the dates were shown on the individual comic pages when you go to https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ashouty.com, however, Google still thinks the homepage has not been updated since October 4, and that is still the date on the homepage in search results which affects my rankings.

I am using a featured news post on the homepage with the date of October 4 so I know that is why Google thinks that is the latest date. I could remove it but I really would like to keep it there and just figure out why Google is not recognizing the comics as a legitimate update to the homepage. Would it have anything to do with the comics on the homepage being outside of the primary content area (for instance, on the individual comic pages, it is inside the primary content area and Google does recognize those dates)? Would the semantic organization of the page make that difference? I really don’t know.

I will next try Schema plugin and keep you posted.

This is quite a puzzle and I’m all out of ideas, I’m afraid. Let me know how you get on with the Schema plugin. If that doesn’t work out, I recommend keeping an eye for answers on Google’s forum.

You may also have some luck posting to the Yoast or Schema support forums. The team behind those plugins will be much more familiar with SEO than myself and may be able to point you in the right direction.

Ok sounds good and thank you.

I truly think the semantic organization of the HTML on the homepage only could have something to do with it, however, and should be further explored by Automattic for future releases of the Panel theme. The comic on the homepage is outside of <div id="primary" class="content-area"> so it is possible that the dates and content outside of the div are not recognized. (Otherwise we wouldn’t see a difference in how Google treats the individual comic pages in search results, which happen to be inside that primary content area div, but we do see the difference.)

On another note, but still homepage related, do you know if it is possible to have the homepage not show latest news or featured news? Or is that only possible by making them disappear with CSS? Right now in Settings > Reading, my Front Page is set to A Static Page, with Front page being a Page I selected, and Posts page being Blog. So even though my front page is a page, it still shows latest news unless I select a feature news post, then it will show that. Is there a way to not show either?

Hi,

On another note, but still homepage related, do you know if it is possible to have the homepage not show latest news or featured news?

There isn’t a built in option to hide the posts on your home page, you can only hide them using custom CSS or by removing the code that generates that posts via a child theme.

The custom CSS you need would be as follows:

.home #featured-content {
    display: none;
}

If you have a child theme set up, the copy/paste the front-page.php file to your child theme’s directory and remove the following code:

		$paged = ( get_query_var( 'paged' ) ) ? get_query_var( 'paged' ) : 1;

		$front_posts = new WP_Query( array(
			'posts_per_page' => get_option( 'posts_per_page' ),
			'paged'          => $paged,
			'no_found_rows'  => true,
		) );

		if ( panel_has_featured_posts() ) : ?>

			<div id="featured-content" class="site-content" role="main">

				<div class="featured-news-title"><?php esc_html_e( 'Featured News', 'panel' ); ?></div>

				<?php $featured_posts = panel_get_featured_posts(); ?>

				<?php foreach ( (array) $featured_posts as $order => $post ) : ?>

					<?php setup_postdata( $post ); ?>

					<?php get_template_part( 'content', 'featured' ); ?>

				<?php endforeach; ?>

			</div>

			<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

		<?php elseif ( $front_posts->have_posts() ) : ?>

			<div id="content" class="site-content" role="main">

				<div class="featured-news-title"><?php esc_html_e( 'Latest News', 'panel' ); ?></div>

				<?php while ( $front_posts->have_posts() ) : $front_posts->the_post(); ?>

					<?php get_template_part( 'content', 'featured' ); ?>

				<?php endwhile; ?>

				<?php panel_content_nav( 'nav-below' ); ?>

			</div>

		<?php elseif ( 'page' !== get_option( 'show_on_front' ) ) : ?>

			<div id="content" class="site-content" role="main">

				<?php get_template_part( 'no-results', 'index' ); ?>

			</div>

		<?php endif; ?>

Hope that helps! If you have any extra questions, please feel free to start a new thread on this forum.