What do the dates refer to in seo moz reports

[Highlandgael]

question is in the title - new trainee asked me and couldn't actually answer!

[Highlandgael]

the particular date format I am refering to is in the crawl report - the dates are 10/1  7/1  4/1 repeated over and over

i have a feeling it is going to be a very obvious answer but, is it the number of days gone past and why would SEO not just use standard calendar dates?

[SamWeber]

Hi!

These dates just there to provide you with a timescale so you can see how your diagnostic issues have trended over time.  The older the campaign is, the more the scale increases until you hit about a year.  So for this example (http://screencast.com/t/U62XG8tCbni8), 2/1 refers to 2/1/13 and 4/16 refers to 4/16/13.

If you have an older campaign (say with a years worth of data), you'll see the graph that says something like 5/1, 7/1 [...] 3/1, 5/1.  This would represent a 5/1/12 - 5/1/13 timeframe.  Hopefully this helped clear up the graph  Have a great day!

Best,

Sam
Moz Helpster

[Highlandgael]

Thanks Sam, i've always viewed these reports as trend reports, but realised i had never understood the date formats underneath them!