Uncertain Which Group This Belongs To - Dates of Web Content

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BobH
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Uncertain Which Group This Belongs To - Dates of Web Content

Post by BobH »

I have almost certainly put this in the wrong place but trust the admins to overcome my fault and position it correctly.

Is there any way to know what date a particular web page was hosted and how recently it has been updated? Is there a browser add-on - I use Firefox 30.0 - that will make it evident?

I many cases when I am reading web page content I wish to know how current the information is. I don't know enough about how html is managed by web servers to know if there is any dating if the content author does not proactively display the information. It seems logical that a web server would know the date of upload and, at a minimum, the date of the last change if not dates of sequences of changes. If this exists, I suspect that it is not served back to a web page request.

I, for one, would like to see this available.

Can anyone educate me?

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HansV
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Re: Uncertain Which Group This Belongs To - Dates of Web Con

Post by HansV »

I don't think there is a reliable way to determine that information. You can right-click a web page in Firefox and select 'View Page Info' from the context menu. The info dialog will contain an item labeled 'Modifed', but it will almost certainly display the date and time the page was loaded. Much of the content that we browse is generated on the fly.
Best wishes,
Hans

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Rudi
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Re: Uncertain Which Group This Belongs To - Dates of Web Con

Post by Rudi »

You could try this technique:
To check on the last time a web page was last updated, clear the address bar and type: javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

NOTE:
  • When using Chrome, (or any browser with an omnibar), you need to manually type this in because when you copy and paste this in, Chrome will remove the javascript: section and therefore you’ll just run a needless Google search on “alert(document.lastModified)”
  • This technique is only useful for static pages...
See this webpage for additional options in IE and Firefox
Last edited by Rudi on 14 Jul 2014, 04:57, edited 1 time in total.
Regards,
Rudi

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HansV
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Re: Uncertain Which Group This Belongs To - Dates of Web Con

Post by HansV »

By the way, I have moved this thread from the Scuttlebutt forum to the Firefox forum.
Best wishes,
Hans