Yellow Warning sign in Google sitemaps

[janewriting]

Google is showing a yellow triangle "warnings" in web master tools against the sitemap. I can't see anything wrong  - it appears to be downloading it and saying success - last downloaded 15 hours ago. I can't see anything odd in the Google diagnostic panel. This is the site map:

[ External links are visible to forum administrators only ]

I tried resubmitting it and waiting a day but it is still showing the yellow triangle.

My traffic is going down too!

help please
Jane

[XML-Sitemaps Support]

Hello,

there must be a link to view details on what exactly is the warning message raised by Google.

[janewriting]

I cannot find anywhere that tells me what the problem is. I searched Google Help and it said:

Sitemap Details page lists any errors Google found with your Sitemap, as well as warnings about potentially problematic issues.

I looked in that section and it said there could be verification issues - but it was expressed in rather a strange way - more like a general comment than specific to my sitemap. I had a look at some of my other sitemaps and went to the same section and the comment was basically the same, so that doesn't take me any further.

I'm tearing my hair out and just don't know what to do next.

[janewriting]

I've spent more time looking round and in particualr checking the verification status of my site. It says clearly that it is verified, so that can't be the reason for the yellow triangle.

[XML-Sitemaps Support]

Can you please attach a screenshot of the page where you see the warning icon?

[janewriting]

thanks for your help. Here it is - attached

[XML-Sitemaps Support]

Please click on "sitemap.xml" there to find out details.

[janewriting]

done that and this is what it says:

1122 Invalid tag value
This XML tag has an invalid value. Please fix it and resubmit.

[janewriting]

even though I've got this detailed piece of information I don't know what to do.

Surely the software shouldn't produce an invalid tag value?

Jane

[janewriting]

I added some more pages to the site and produced a new site map. Google tools then said the error was on line 1110.

I then noticed that the time was 1970 (not 2009). I had a copy fo the previous site map where it said line 1122(?) was the problem. I looked at that site map and it's the same page again with a date of 1970.

I have corrected this manually, but my question now is why is the software suddenly attaching a date of 1970 to this file which has existed all the time I have been using sitemap and has always delivered 2009 before.

i don't want to have to correct it manually  each time I run sitemap.

I have now resubmitted the sitemap to Google and hopefully the warning triangle will disappear when it has been checked.


Jane

[XML-Sitemaps Support]

Can you copy and paste here the complete <url>..</url> section that included that incorrect line?

[janewriting]

Here it is:

<url>
       <loc>[ External links are visible to forum administrators only ]</loc>
       <priority>daily</priority>
       <changefreq>daily</changefreq>
       <lastmod>1970-01-01T01:00:00+00:00</lastmod> 
  </url>

Google still produced an error message the first time I changed the lastmod to the same as the others. Then I noticed it was giving priority as daily.

I changed this  as well and google Ok'd the sitemap.

I've run the sitemap since and it still produced this for this file, so I've manually altered it again.

This particualr URL has been there for several years so I do not know why it is suddenly producing this problem. Since I've realsied what the problem is it has always been attached to this URL and no other.

[XML-Sitemaps Support]

Hello,

try to remove "Individual attributes" in sitemap generator configuration if you have set any.

[janewriting]

thanks, Oleg
that seems to have fixed it. Your help is much appreciated.

Jane