Using Date published + Date updated can wreck your organic CTR

Adding both “Date published” and “Date updated” to articles can confuse Google, causing it to display outdated dates in search results.

The impact? A 22% drop in CTR for one site, according to an SEO case study shared by SEO professional Abby Gleason on LinkedIn today.

Why we care. Your position in the search results only matters if people click. Searchers may be less likely to click on your fresh content if Google displays an older publication date.

What happened. Gleason shared this screenshot of an unspecified website and explained what happened:

• The site in question saw a sharp decline in CTR starting in late August, when “Date updated” was added alongside “Date published.”
• Despite content updates in 2024 and 2025, Google displayed publish dates as old as 2021 in search results.

The fix. If you have both, remove one date that appears on the page. Use whichever date best represents its freshness – either the date the content was published or updated, not both.

The datePublished and dateModified Schema doesn’t seem to matter as much as the on-page date, Gleason further explained in a follow-up comment:

• “…only having one date on-page is more impactful than the schema changes. Definitely limit on-page to just one date (the most recent update) but it shouldn’t hurt to maintain both datePublished and dateModified attributes in schema.”

Google advice. This echoes a best practice Google shared in this help doc:

• “Minimize the presence of other dates on the page: If you’ve followed the best practices and find incorrect dates are being selected, consider removing some or all other dates that appear on the page.”

Dig deeper. 4 SEO tips to boost click-through rate