The date a blog post was first published should be found right below or above the post title. However, that is not always the case. In this guide, we will be teaching you how to find out the exact publication date of a post.

Website owners, for one reason or the other, hide the original publication date of their blog posts. Mostly due to the fact that they want their visitors to think of their blog posts as recent, updated and relevant.

Most people, who want recent information, would not click on your blog post if they realized it was published 10 years ago. So, after recently updating a blog post, most bloggers prefer to display just the ‘last updated date.’

But for some reason or the other, you may need to know the exact date a post was first published — maybe for academic research purpose.

In my own case, I need to send a proof to DMCA that I am the original publisher of an article that was copied from my website.

How to find the date a blog post was first published

Whatever your reasons may be, this guide will show you how to find the date a blog post was first published and who the author of that blog post is.

Method 1

step 1: Visit that blog post or page in a Mozilla browser.

“The 25 Richest People In The World 2018” post by Wealthy Gorilla has no publication date; however, we’ll find out when it first hit the web.

Step2: Right click on any text area in the page and click on view page source.

Step 3: Click on General

The general tab contains all the information regarding publication. As you can see, although not visible within the actual blog post, I can tell that the publication was made in March 2018 and last updated in April 2018. Easy! right?

New update

Method 2

Method 1 has been flawed to some extent. It is not always accurate. Publishers have found a way around it.

But here’s what cannot be manipulated: “Google index data.”

If you were unable to check when a web article was first published using method 1 above, maybe because you are using a cellphone or it has been manipulated, here’s another way to go about it.

In your search bar enter the address below:

Ensuring to replace the URL in red: “https://www.naijahomebased.com/blogger-com-review” with the actual URL of the post you want to check its original publication date.

The date displayed, right beside the MetaDescription, is the date the post was originally published.

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