dateModified earlier than datePublished for scheduled posts

[jeroenrotty]

Moved from: https://yoast.atlassian.net/browse/IM-38

Describe the bug

When a post is scheduled and eventually published, the dateModified schema and the article:modified_time and og:updated_time tags are set to the date when the post was scheduled. However, the datePublished schema and the article:published_time tag are set to the date when the post is published.

Consequently, the post appears with a modified date earlier than the published date which is incorrect.

To address this, in all post save and publish actions, we should synchronize both date values to the most recent value.

Why should we fix this

Google may wrongly interpret the modified and published dates as saying that posts are modified before they have even been published.

Impact

Users of Yoast SEO scheduling posts.

To Reproduce

1. Install and activate Yoast SEO
2. Create and schedule a new post
3. Wait for the post to be published
4. Go to frontend and inspect date tags and schema markup (see screenshot below)

Screenshots

Workaround

A user in the community provided this workaround. The workaround involves editing plugin files and would need to be reapplied after each plugin update.

[jeroenrotty]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 626324 when this conversation has been closed.

[jeroenrotty]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 626678 when this conversation has been closed.

[jeroenrotty]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 902714 when this conversation has been closed.

[jeroenrotty]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 977732 when this conversation has been closed.

[jeroenrotty]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 1067200 when this conversation has been closed.

[jeroenrotty]

+1 https://wordpress.org/support/topic/datemodified-younger-than-datepublish-for-planed-articles/

[jeroenrotty]

+1 https://wordpress.org/support/topic/modified-date-before-publishing-date/

[RitchelLauron]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 1105552 when this conversation has been closed.

[RitchelLauron]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 1112456 when this conversation has been closed.

[laurasacco]

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[amboutwe]

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[maybellyne]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 1151178 when this conversation has been closed.

[maybellyne]

+1 https://wordpress.org/support/topic/published-date-higher-than-updated-date-when-scheduling-posts/

[RitchelLauron]

Please inform the customer of conversation # 1161020 when this conversation has been closed.