How to fix non iso date on Adobe Commerce (Magento)

Steps for Adobe Commerce (Magento)

1. In your Magento admin, go to Content → Configuration → check if a third-party SEO extension (e.g. Mageplaza SEO, Amasty SEO, Mageworx SEO Suite) is responsible for generating structured data — if so, consult that extension's settings panel for date format options.
2. If structured data is output by a custom theme, navigate to your theme directory on the server (app/design/frontend/<Vendor>/<theme>/) and search for 'datePublished' or 'dateModified' in .phtml or .xml layout files.
3. Locate the PHP code generating the date value and replace informal formatting with PHP's DateTime output: (new DateTime($date))->format(DateTime::ATOM) which produces a valid ISO-8601 string.
4. Alternatively, use PHP's date() function: date('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z', strtotime($date_value)).
5. Clear the Magento cache after changes: System → Cache Management → Flush Cache Storage.
6. Test product and CMS pages in Google's Rich Results Test to confirm corrected date output.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebPage",
  "name": "My Product Page",
  "datePublished": "2019-09-23",
  "dateModified": "2024-03-15T09:30:00Z"
}

What is non iso date?

Structured data (the behind-the-scenes code that tells Google what your page is about) includes date fields like `datePublished` and `dateModified`. These dates must be written in a specific international format called ISO-8601 — which looks like `YYYY-MM-DD` (for example, `2019-09-23`) or with a full timestamp like `2019-09-23T00:00:00Z`. When dates are written in a casual format like "09/23/2019 00:00:00" or "September 23, 2019", search engines cannot reliably parse them and may ignore them entirely. Think of it like filling out an official form: the field has a required format, and anything else gets rejected.

Google uses `datePublished` and `dateModified` to understand content freshness — a key signal for ranking pages in news, article, product, and general search results. If Google can't parse your date, it may estimate the wrong publish date or show no date at all in search results, making your listings look outdated or untrustworthy compared to competitors whose dates are formatted correctly. For Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), freshness signals help your content surface in AI-generated answers and featured snippets, where recency is often a deciding factor. A malformed date can also cause your structured data to fail Google's Rich Results Test, disqualifying your pages from rich result enhancements like breadcrumb trails, review stars, and FAQ dropdowns — all of which directly impact click-through rates and organic traffic.

See the complete Non iso date guide for every platform and the full background.