Improve the display of your content on a site and in search results by editing individual items using the following best practices.
Metadata quality
Improve the clarity and usefulness of your content by ensuring that it has complete metadata. Select the Edit button 
on an item's full details page or explore page (content views), to edit basic details. You can edit basic metadata for items in Data and Document families. Otherwise, edit the item in ArcGIS Online (any non-item resource such as a layer or a published service that
is not an item but part of an item). In the full details view of a dataset, the attribute list supports Field value types.
- Thumbnail—The thumbnail image is displayed on layout cards and content views.
- Title—Use a title that is succinct and informative. Avoid underscores as they will be removed. For public content shared to a hub site, Hub generates a user-friendly URL (with dataset name) shown in content views. Otherwise, the content item URL displays the item ID (a series of numbers). Details are in this Note.
- Summary—Give an overview in several sentences that cover the key elements of the item.
- Description—Write a description that is clear and informative, as it is shown on content views and in search results.
- License—Choose a structured license or enter a custom one. You will see a warning if a chosen license is already set. The license displays on the full details page and on the explore page, if available. It also displays (and can be added) in ArcGIS Online, under Terms of use on the item details page. If you enter the license name (CC0) or URL here, Hub will consider it a structured license and users can filter by it when searching (limited to public, indexed content).
- Tags—These help users discover your datasets through searches. For individual items, add tags in ArcGIS Online. All layers in map and feature services will have the same tags as those set for the entire service in ArcGIS Online..
- Categories-These help organize items and facilitate their discovery and use.
Tip:
ArcGIS Hub recognizes Creative Commons licenses (CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA, etc.) and Open Data Commons licenses (PDDL, ODbL, ODC-By) as “structured licenses.” License metadata will link to the respective license details web page.
Caution:
Certain fields in ArcGIS Hub allow rich-text editing (formatting) with the following HTML tags: h3, h4, h5, h6, img, blockquote, p, a, ul, ol, nl, li, b, i, strong, em, strike, code, hr, br, div, table, thead, caption, tbody, tr, th, td, pre. Text in other tags will appear inline.
Dates
Datasets can show three dates in a content view: Info Updated, Data Updated, and Published Date. Items in all other content families can show two dates: Data Updated (shown as Date Updated) and Published Date.
- Published Date- Date item was created
- Data Updated- Date item was last modified
- Info Updated- Date metadata was last modified
Configure dates displayed
Below are the date values that display and their order of priority, when present (highest priority at top). Find these settings in the ArcGIS Online metadata editor as indicated in the following sections.
Published Date
- Published Date (Resource- Citation- Titles & Dates)
- Creation Date (Resource- Citation- Titles & Dates)
- Date item created
Data Updated
- Revision Date (Last modified if editor tracking enabled, for datasets only)
- Revision Date (Resource- Citation- Titles & Dates)
- Revision Date (Last opened or edited in ArcGIS Online)
- Date item modified
Info Updated (for datasets only)
- Custom date (Metadata- Metadata Date, date metadata last edited)
- Date item modified
Set automatic date updates
To automatically show when a dataset was last updated, turn on editor tracking (the service must support it). This displays as Data Updated (for datasets) and overrides any other dates, as shown above.
Caution:
Editor tracking applies only to items that are backed by a feature service. It is not supported in map services (including a feature service in a map service).
Set an update frequency
Select an Update frequency (Continual, Daily, Weekly, etc.) or enter a Custom frequency to show how often data or info (metadata) will be regularly updated.
Data Updated
- If frequency is set and a revision date is present, frequency displays (Resource- Maintenance).
Info Updated
- If both frequency (Metadata- Maintenance) and a Custom date (Metadata- Metadata Date) are set, both display.
- If frequency is set (but not Custom date), frequency displays.
- If neither are set, the date that the metadata was last modified displays.
Location (extent) and basemap
Location (or extent) is the geographic area covered by features in a dataset. The basemap is the reference map that displays under other map layers. By default, on a content preview page, ArcGIS Hub zooms to the extent of the dataset and displays the basemap set for the site. If the item extent is not set, the map will show the extent set for the site. If the extent or basemap is not set at the site level, then the map will use the organization settings for each.
Set the location
To set Location for items with none set, select Item's current extent. Select Edit 
to update or set an item location. When needed, you can configure the location in ArcGIS Online.
Tip:
If the item's explore view displays an extent that seems to cover the world or is anchored in Null Island, update the location for the item in ArcGIS Hub.
Setting an extent helps users understand the geographic area your content represents or to which it is relevant. It also affects the map display on the details and explore pages.
Set the basemap
You can set the basemap (in site Settings) and this map will display on the explore page as a base layer for all spatial datasets on your site. This does not apply to web maps as their basemap is set in ArcGIS Online.
Verified organization badges
If your ArcGIS Online organization is verified, an authoritative badge appears on the side panel when viewing an item's content view. To verify your ArcGIS Online, see Organization verification.