Freshness Signal
Indicators of how recently a page was published or updated.
Freshness signals are indicators AI engines use to judge how current a page is: visible publication dates, "last updated" timestamps, dateModified in Article schema, and HTTP Last-Modified headers.
Research from BrightEdge (2026) found 95% of ChatGPT citations pointed to content updated within the last 10 months. Freshness is one of the strongest predictors of AI citation.