Leverage Browser Caching: Do I need Last-Modified?

[kimmiedawn]

Per Page Speed recommendations I specified the Expires header in my .htaccess file. Do I need to add code for Last-Modified too? I thought I read somewhere that it will put the date next to the meta description in the SERPS, which might cause the result to seem outdated after a while.

Are there any problems that could crop up if these aren't implemented correctly.

[KristinaKledzik]

Hi Kimberly,

Sorry for the delayed response!

You're mixing two fields here: "last modified" fields in the .htaccess file are not references for search engines; "last modified" in meta data in the HTML or in the XML sitemap may be. Beyond that, webmasters have tried to manipulate "last modified" dates so much, Google's fairly wary of them. So, I wouldn't worry about using a last modified field in your .htaccess file.

Hope this helps!

Kristina