This factor reports whether RankGear finds the Microformats2 dt-published class on a page, a property that marks a machine-readable publication date. It returns 1 when the exact double-quoted class="dt-published" string is present and 0 when it is not — it confirms the marker exists but never checks whether the date value itself is accurate.
| Factor ID | RG-SCF-002 |
|---|---|
| Family | Structured Data – MicroFormat |
| Measurement | Binary presence (0 / 1) |
| Measured zone | Body HTML without scripts |
What it measures
This factor reports whether RankGear recognizes the dt-published MicroFormat class, the Microformats2 property used to expose a publication date or time in machine-readable form. It is a simple presence check: the class is either detected in the page body or it is not.
How RankGear measures it
RankGear performs a case-insensitive search across the body HTML (scripts excluded) for the exact double-quoted sequence class="dt-published" and returns 1 when that string is found, otherwise 0. The match is literal — the class must appear on its own inside double quotes for the detector to register it.
What RankGear looks for
<time class="dt-published" datetime="2026-08-25">August 25, 2026</time>| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1 | The exact string class="dt-published" was found in the body HTML. |
| 0 | The string was not found — no dt-published marker, or it appears in a form the detector does not match (see below). |
How to optimize it
Use dt-published on an accurate machine-readable publication date when Microformats2 is already part of the page’s markup strategy. Because the detector requires the class to sit alone inside double quotes, a multi-class attribute such as class="entry-date dt-published" or a single-quoted attribute will not register even though it is valid Microformats2 — so treat a 0 as a note about detector-visible form, not proof the page lacks a publication date. Do not bolt Microformats classes onto a page that is not otherwise using Microformats2; a coherent implementation matters more than a single matched string.
Important considerations
- Multi-class and single-quoted attributes do not match this exact detector, so a valid
dt-publishedcan still return 0. - Presence confirms the marker only — it does not validate that the date value is correct or current.
- Keep the visible date and the machine-readable date consistent so readers and parsers see the same publication date.
- Do not add MicroFormat classes without a coherent implementation across the page.
- This is a correlation-based prioritization signal observed within a measured result set. Presence of
dt-publishedrelates to position; it does not make a page rank or guarantee any ranking.
Related factors
Part of the Factors reference · how RankGear measures · glossary.