Checks / Links, canonical and speed
Sitemap dates are older than the pages' own
On some pages the date the page gives for its last change is more than two weeks newer than the <lastmod> in your sitemap. Crawlers use lastmod to decide what to fetch again, so they may keep an old copy. The HTML cannot say which of the two dates is stale.
sitemap_lastmod_drift · Links, canonical and speed · Notice
What triggers it
With at least 5 comparable pages, one or more pages carry their own modified date more than 14 days newer than the <lastmod> the sitemap gives for them. The other direction is not flagged.
What to change
Drive the sitemap <lastmod> and the page's own modified date from the same last-content-change timestamp.
Example
Entry in sitemap.xml:
<url><loc>https://example.com/shoes/blue-trail</loc><lastmod>2026-10-24</lastmod></url>How to confirm the fix
- Open https://example.com/sitemap.xml and one of the example pages: the page's modified date and the sitemap's <lastmod> show the same day
- Run a new crawl
How common it is
We have not measured how common this is on a sample of sites. Counts appear here when a study covers it.
About this check
| Check ID | sitemap_lastmod_drift |
|---|---|
| Report section | Links, canonical and speed |
| Severity | Notice |
| How it is decided | Measured: read directly from the page or the server's response. |
| Added | Before 19 Oct 2026 (versions 1 and 2), or a site-wide check with no version date yet |
| Status | Measured in every report |
| Report gives the code | No, the fix is described in words |
Related checks
- Server version is public
- Sitemap has no useful last-modified dates
- Sitemap and site disagree
- URL is hard to read or share
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