The Problem With unavailable_after - Google Might Not See Updated Dates

Search Engine Roundtable by 3 min read 769x views
The Problem With unavailable_after - Google Might Not See Updated Dates

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Google Time Disappear

Google supports the unavailable_after meta attribute, which will show Google not to show this page successful hunt results aft the specified date/time. The problem pinch this, is that if you effort to alteration the unavailable_after day later, Google mightiness not prime up connected it because Google whitethorn not effort to crawl that page earlier the past fixed date.

Google first began supporting unavailable_after successful July 2007 and it has been utilized chiefly for contented you don't want Google to show successful its scale aft the day you placed. It besides has been utilized for products you nary longer sell.

But Gary Illyes from Google added a spot much item connected this connected LinkedIn erstwhile he was asked astir utilizing it arsenic an replacement from utilizing a 404 position code. This circumstantial illustration is that the pages usually expire aft 24 to 72 hours, they person "very short lifespans," Javier Lorente Murillo wrote. But sometimes, those dates tin beryllium extended to beyond the 72 hours, if the advertiser wants to widen them.

Javier asked, "To forestall monolithic 404 errors and negociate our crawl budget, we want to instrumentality the unavailable_after meta tag crossed each short-lived listings. However, users tin renew their ads, which intends our strategy would dynamically push the unavailable_after day further into the early connected the fly." He continued to ask, "Are location immoderate antagonistic SEO implications if Googlebot sees the unavailable_after day perpetually shifting guardant connected the aforesaid URL? Will Googlebot yet commencement ignoring the tag owed to these predominant changes, aliases is it wholly good to usage it dynamically to negociate indexation life-cycles successful a high-turnover environment?"

Gary Illyes from Google responded:

My gut emotion is that it's good to push guardant the unavailable_after day BUT you request to support successful mind that we'll request to crawl the page again to "see" the caller date. It doesn't person implications connected thing but scale selection, wherever it acts arsenic a "you tin driblet this now" signal.

In short, this tin work, but if you show Google to driblet the page astatine a circumstantial day and time, Google mightiness respect that and not cheque to spot if location is simply a caller day from the original day it crawled and processed. It conscionable mightiness not work, timing-wise.

I americium wondering if those URLs should conscionable group the unavailable_after day aft it expires afloat and conscionable make the day to erstwhile it really does expire. Of course, that mightiness lead to the page showing successful Google for longer...

Forum chat astatine LinkedIn.

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