WebProNews

What does the date represent?  The day the page was made, or the date the page was last updated?

This is interesting because google and other SEs have been looking at the timestamp for quite some time now.  Basically, keeping a web site fresh, helps boost you in the SERPs.  This would translate into a recent Date/TimeStamp, which the search engines take into consideration.

So now google wants everyone to see the timestamp.  This is the interesting part. 

Maybe google wants to see if Viewers care about a certain time frame; is new always better?  or are there other circumstances to take into consideration?  In order to improve relevant search results, maybe google wants to find out how we, the viewers, take the date into consideration for non-news searches.  By doing this, google can alter their algorithm based on our reaction to the date of the SERs. 

I try to update some of my pages every week....my site has too many pages to update every single page in a week.  So I choose the most popular pages with the most significant keywords and useful features and update these pages weekly.   It helps to keep my site in the top 10 of the SERPs for many keyword phrases.  But when I slack off and leave my web pages unchanged for a few weeks at a time, my position in the SERPs suffers. 

The timestamp is not new.  What's new, is that viewers can see the timestamp, all be it inconsistently.  None the less, sounds like google has something up their sleeves....as usual.

There are some keyword searches where the date displayed would be beneficial. Such as current news, or software drivers. There has been alot of times that I search for something that is old and stale. I think the date would be great for those type of searches.

 I'm interested to see how a more recent date means better results.  Many of my searches are not current events and this could be a potential pain in the butt.