While searching Google today for a random search query, I noticed that the first search result was kind of odd. The Instragram post was a travel photo and it had nothing to do with the query that I just searched for. But that’s actually what didn’t surprise me. I’m not surprised by Google showing off-topic results for certain search queries. What shocked me was that apparently Google says that the post was made on Jan 17, 1970.
Yep, you got that right. Take a look at the screen capture:
It’s Instagram, and we all know that when you post on Instagram (and on a host of other sites) and make blog posts, the post date is typically shown in the search results. So apparently Google thinks that this Instagram post was made in January 1970. Uh, no, Google, I think you got that one wrong.
If you look at the actual post on Instagram, you can see that it was actually posted “2 months ago”. Which would be October 2014. So how does Google think it was posted in 1970?
I have no idea.
I checked the page source code, and there is no mention of 1970 whatsoever. So, then I checked the server header:
HTTP/1.1·200·OK Cache-Control:·private,·no-cache,·no-store,·must-revalidate Content-Language:·en Content-Type:·text/html Date:·Thu,·04·Dec·2014·18:23:14·GMT Expires:·Sat,·01·Jan·2000·00:00:00·GMT Pragma:·no-cache Server:·nginx Set-Cookie:·csrftoken=cbf4735fba1b3af77effe680ed554fe1;·expires=Thu,·03-Dec-2015·18:23:14·GMT;·Max-Age=31449600;·Path=/ Set-Cookie:·mid=VICmkgAEAAG9NCfmNjVqRqcMKZn-;·expires=Wed,·29-Nov-2034·18:23:14·GMT;·Max-Age=630720000;·Path=/ Set-Cookie:·ccode=US;·Path=/ Vary:·Cookie,·Accept-Language,·Accept-Encoding X-Frame-Options:·SAMEORIGIN transfer-encoding:·chunked Connection:·Close
The server header for that page shows an “expires” date of Saturday 01 January 2000. Which is something that Instagram should fix, but nothing even close to 1970. So at this point, I’m not sure where Google is pulling that January 1970 date from.