Last Mod Date Questions
« on: June 20, 2007, 09:34:32 PM »
When generating a map I set the last mod date to "use servers response". However, instead of getting the mod date from my server it will have a lastmod date for the time that the map was created. That time will be on "every" page in the site.

Just read this at the google webmaster forums. Is this something I should do something about?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

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But it's another area in which you can easily lose Google's trust.  If
you use a generated sitemap, the generator will likely insert the same
lastmod date for every page - and when Google checks your headers it
might find that's simply not true and award you a black mark or two.
Be VERY, VERY, VERY careful with generated sitemaps.

Same applies to lastmod.  Set every one to daily and Google sees from
your headers that you really change once a year - same potential for
loss of trust in your site.  And don't think you can get round that by
uploading every page every day - when Google parses the page and sees
no changes for the index it will know you're trying to cheat.

Sitemap generators should not fill optional fields with the same
rubbish for every page - Google has already defined defaults for each
of them.

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Re: Last Mod Date Questions
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2007, 08:17:19 PM »
If anyone is interested, It went ahead and deleted the non required data. I submitted a new map and all is well.

You can find out exactly what google requires at;

[ External links are visible to forum administrators only ]

I figure it's better to just leave out the optional fields instead of putting in something which could possibly affect my ranking.

I suggest that whoever is doing the programming on the free sitemap generator should consider tweaking the options so users can leave the optional fields out if they wish. It would leave out the extra step of having to delete the data after downloading.

I was also wondering why I do not get the correct moddate even when setting the last mod date to "use servers response". If anyone know's why that's happening please let me know.