What it measures

Freshness measures how recently your content was published or last updated, plus how many temporal references appear in the text. The score is based on the most recent date found in your metadata, with a small bonus (up to +1 point) for temporal references in the text such as specific years and dates.

Why it matters for AI

AI systems increasingly prefer fresh content, especially for topics that change over time. A page about "best AI tools" from 2021 will be skipped in favour of a 2024 update. Clear publication dates and recent updates signal to AI that your information is current and reliable.

Note: The Freshness category is excluded from scoring for page types where recency is not meaningful — including homepages, landing pages, product pages, category pages, FAQ pages, contact pages, checkout pages, and several others. When excluded, its weight is redistributed to the remaining categories.

Last updated	Score	AI treatment
Within 30 days	~9/10	Actively preferred for current topics
1–3 months	7.5–9/10	Still current for most topics
3–6 months	5–7.5/10	Acceptable for evergreen topics
6–12 months	0–5/10	May be deprioritised
> 1 year	0/10	Score bottoms out — only temporal word bonus applies
No date found	5/10	Neutral — AI cannot assess freshness at all

How to improve

1. Add date meta tags — article:published_time and article:modified_time
2. Include dates in JSON-LD — datePublished and dateModified in Article schema
3. Reference current dates in content — "As of 2024..." anchors your content in time
4. Review and update regularly — Even minor updates reset the modified date