How many websites pass the Date Published check?

Based on 596 audited sites · Updated 2026-07-16

11.7%of audited sites pass this check↑2.7% vs last month

95% confidence interval: 9.4%–14.6%

About This Check

Checks whether content includes a publication date, helping AI systems assess freshness.

Why This Matters

LLM Discoverability

Publication date is a primary freshness signal for LLMs; models are trained to downweight or exclude stale content when answering time-sensitive queries, so clearly dated pages are more likely to be cited.

SEO Impact

Google uses publication date to power freshness-based ranking adjustments (QDF); clearly dated pages are rewarded in time-sensitive query contexts and appear correctly in date-filtered search results.

What To Do Next

88.3% of audited sites need attention on date published (526 of 596 sites are warning or failing).

Prioritize date published on templates that create many URLs, because one template fix can improve a large share of content freshness & authority.
After changing the page, re-run the audit and compare the observed value for this check instead of relying on visual inspection alone.
Use the 11.7% pass rate as a benchmark: if your site fails here, passing the check moves it closer to the visible majority of crawlable, AI-readable pages.

Status Breakdown

11.7%pass(70)

88.3%warn(526)

0%fail(0)

Compliance Trend

Daily pass, warning, and failure rates across benchmark snapshots (up to 90 days).

Industry Breakdown

How different industries perform on this check.

41.2% of audited Travel & Hospitality sites pass this check (n=51), compared with 2.6% of Finance & Banking sites (n=39).

credible samples first · then pass rateshown-industry average 11.8%

Industry pass rates, average audit scores, and sample sizes. A marker in each pass-rate bar shows the weighted average across the displayed industries.
Industry	Pass rate	Avg score	Sites
Travel & Hospitality	41.2%	74.8	51
Education	13.3%	71.8	30
Technology	9.4%	72	278
Media & Entertainment	8.3%	73.8	84
E-Commerce	3.3%	69.6	30
Finance & Banking	2.6%	72.8	39
Government	21.4%	73.1	14limited
Healthcare	11.1%	76.7	9limited
Food & Beverage	9.1%	71.1	11limited
Other	0%	67	7limited

Related Checks

Run a free audit to see whether your site passes this check, or browse the leaderboard and the audited-sites directory.