# Freshness signals

> Freshness signals show when content was published or last updated: a visible date, a `<time>` element or dateModified in structured data.

- **Check ID:** A15
- **Area:** [AI Readiness](https://be1st.ai/glossary/ai-readiness)
- **Tool:** [AI Readiness](https://be1st.ai/tools/ai-readiness)
- **Page:** https://be1st.ai/glossary/ai-readiness/freshness-signals

## Why it matters

AI models prefer current content and use freshness signals to decide which source to cite. Outdated content without an update date has lower priority in AI responses.

## In practice

Google Cloud documentation displays a 'Last updated' date on every page. When AI compares two sources on the same topic, it prefers the one with a more recent update date.

## How be1st checks it

Detects content freshness signals: publication date and last updated date. The check looks for a `<time>` element, the datePublished and dateModified properties in structured data, and the article:published_time and article:modified_time meta tags. For homepages, this check is skipped (N/A) since homepages typically don't have a publication date.

[AI Readiness](https://be1st.ai/tools/ai-readiness), Trust tab.

Every check ends as: Pass, Warning, Fail.

## Sources

- [Creating Helpful Content](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content) (Google)

## Related terms

- [Structured data](https://be1st.ai/glossary/seo/structured-data): Structured data is machine-readable markup, usually JSON-LD with the Schema.org vocabulary, that says what a page contains: a product, an article, a company or an event.
- [Entity & author completeness](https://be1st.ai/glossary/ai-readiness/entity-author-completeness): Entity and author completeness is how clearly a website says who is behind it: the author, the company, contact details and profiles elsewhere.
- [AI-friendly content formats & feeds](https://be1st.ai/glossary/ai-readiness/ai-friendly-content-formats): AI-friendly formats and feeds are versions of your content made for machines, such as RSS feeds, llms.txt, Markdown pages or a JSON API.
- [Linkability of key facts](https://be1st.ai/glossary/ai-readiness/linkability-of-key-facts): Linkability of key facts means the important parts of a page have their own anchors (#section), so anyone, an AI answer included, can link straight to them.
- [Changelog / release notes](https://be1st.ai/glossary/ai-readiness/changelog-release-notes): A changelog, or release notes, is a dated public list of the changes to a product or website: new features, fixes and removals.
- [Semantic HTML (article, section, nav, aside)](https://be1st.ai/glossary/ai-readiness/semantic-html): Semantic HTML uses elements that say what their content is, such as article, section, nav, aside and main, instead of generic div boxes.