How to fix non iso date on Squarespace
Change every datePublished (and dateModified) value in your structured data from a human-readable string to a strict ISO-8601 date — formatted as YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss+hh:mm — so search engines can reliably parse your content's freshness.
Steps for Squarespace
- Squarespace auto-generates schema for Blog Posts with ISO-8601 dates from the post's publish date — verify the post's publish date is set correctly in the blog post editor (Posts → click post → gear icon → Publish Date).
- If you have injected custom JSON-LD via Settings → Advanced → Code Injection (site-wide header) or a Page Header Code Injection block, locate the date fields in that code.
- Update any non-ISO date strings to YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss+hh:mm format.
- Squarespace does not expose Liquid/template variables in Code Injection, so dates in custom JSON-LD blocks must be updated manually or via a connected tool.
- Save changes and validate the page with Google's Rich Results Test.
What is non iso date?
Structured data on your pages (the hidden JSON-LD code that tells Google and other search engines what your content is about) includes date fields such as `datePublished` and `dateModified`. ISO-8601 is the internationally standardised date format — for example, `2025-03-12` or `2025-03-12T09:00:00+00:00`. When a date is written in plain English instead — like "Wed Mar 12 2025" — machines can't reliably read it, because there's no single agreed way to parse natural-language dates. Your current schema contains at least one date in a non-standard format, which means search engines may misread or completely ignore it.
Content freshness is a real ranking signal. Google uses `datePublished` and `dateModified` to understand when your pages and articles were created or last updated, and it surfaces that information directly in search results (e.g., "3 days ago" next to a result). If the date can't be parsed, Google may either ignore freshness entirely — hurting rankings for time-sensitive queries — or infer an incorrect date, making a new page look old. For AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation), where AI-powered tools like Google's AI Overviews and Bing Copilot prioritise the freshest, most reliable sources, an unreadable date can mean your content is skipped over in favour of competitors whose schema is clean. Fixing this is a quick win with direct impact on how your pages are indexed and presented.
See the complete Non iso date guide for every platform and the full background.
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