Re: SPH/BT - Article Published Time Not Returning in the API

[Alicia Tan]

Hi Naresh

Thank you for the detailed information. I will raise this internally with my team.

Before I do so, there are a few considerations regarding the crawler's accuracy: 

1. Time Zone Differences: Ensure the crawler and the API use the same time zone settings. Discrepancies can lead to incorrect time stamps. Here's our API documentation on timezones: https://engagereportsapioutbrainv21.docs.apiary.io/#reference/general-lookups/timezones-collection/list-timezones

2. Date Format Parsing: Verify that the crawler correctly parses the date format returned by the API. Different formats (e.g., DD-MM-YYYY vs. MM-DD-YYYY) can cause errors.

3. API Limitations: The API might have limitations or bugs that prevent it from returning the correct publish time. Check the API documentation for any known issues. Feel free to contact me and outbrain-...@googlegroups.com with API-specific questions. For this email, I've already looped in the team. 

4. Crawler Configuration: Please ensure the crawler is configured to fetch the correct metadata from the article. The publish time may be stored in a different field or format. Outbrain is fetching "datePublished": tag. 

5. Network Latency: Delays in network communication can sometimes cause timing issues, though this is less likely to cause a full date discrepancy.

6. Scheduled Maintenance: Ongoing maintenance might affect data accuracy. Refer to the status page for more details: https://outbrain-eng.statuspage.io/

7. Recent Incidents: There was a recent maintenance on the Hadoop system, which might have impacted data processing. Could you check if this aligns with the timing of the issue?

Hope the above helps, and hopefully solves the issue. 

On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 3:12 PM Naresh Pidatala <nar...@sph.com.sg> wrote:

Dear Outbrain Team,

When displaying Outbrain articles on the Business Times Mobile app, we’ve noticed that the published date value only contains the date and not the time. Could you please let us know if it is possible to include the published time as well? More importantly, could you clarify how this value is being retrieved for an article?

For example, for this article https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/tether-says-it-bought-stake-juventus-football-club, the published date and time should be 15-02-2025 09:43, but the API returned 15-02-2025 00:00.

Please find the screenshots attached for your reference.

Best Regards,

Naresh

Senior Engineering Leader

The Business Times | bt.sg

M: +65 9112 5496  

SPH Media Limited 1000 Toa Payoh North, News Centre

Singapore 318994

www.sph.com.sg

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Best, 

Alicia Tan 陈真芳

Team Lead Partner Manager, Publishers APAC

Email: at...@outbrain.com | Mobile: +65 9227 3450

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[Alicia Tan]

Hi Naresh 

Thanks for the information, let me raise this internally. 

Best, 

Alicia Tan 陈真芳

Team Lead Partner Manager, Publishers APAC

Email: at...@outbrain.com | Mobile: +65 9227 3450

On Tue, 18 Feb 2025 at 8:59 PM, Naresh Pidatala <nar...@sph.com.sg> wrote:

Hi Alicia Tan,

I can confirm that for this article, the datePublished: 2025-02-15T01:43:03.000Z is correct in UTC timezone. Since all the articles are returning a 00:00 value for the time, I suspect that Outbrain is not including the time. Please let us know.

Best Regards,

Naresh

[Alicia Tan]

Hi Naresh 

Our team has fixed the issue. Could you check on your end and let me know if the timing is correct? 

Thanks!