Updated! Be sure to scroll down for the latest!

I’m writing a blog post dealing with Scala’s XML literal syntax and how to use it for object de/serialization and so I wanted to get a list of existing Java XML de/serialization libraries. I went to Google and searched for “java xml serialization” and here’s the first result that I got

Notice the date, which is April 23, 2009. That is, ostensibly, the publication date of the article, right? Now check what happens when you click the link and go to read the article

Again, notice the date. It’s six years ago! So, where did Google get the 2009 date? That’s the date of the latest comment on the article. I’m not sure how they are getting Google to display the latest comment date in such a way that it looks like the publication date, but it looks like they are. I can’t imagine that Google just picked that date from the article when it spidered the site. Am I reading too much into this, or is Sys-Con gaming Google for better placement?

09/24/2009 4:26PM Update: Just for grins, I did my Google search for “java xml serialization” again. The Sys-Con article is still the top hit, but notice what’s missing from the search result

Notice, that there is no longer a date showing. Very interesting.