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site.sitemap-lastmod-uniform

InfoSEO auditcrawl

Every URL of a sitemap of 10 or more has the same <lastmod> date and time, which is the time the sitemap was built rather than when each page changed. Bing asks sites not to set lastmod to the sitemap's build time, and Google ignores lastmod values that are not accurate.

What to change

Set each <lastmod> to when that page's content last changed (the CMS's modified date, the content file's last commit or its front matter), not to the build time.

The documentation on blogs.bing.com

A finding of this rule on a page carries the exact edits for that page: the markup it quotes, and what to write instead.

When it runs

Runs on a crawl or a build directory. Info is a best practice: worth doing, rarely urgent, and --no-info leaves it out. Each finding takes 1 point off the page's score.

The severity here is the rule's usual one: a finding can be raised or lowered when the page gives a reason.

Run it, or skip it

Check a page for this rule alone, after a fix for instance:

npx @rivi-software/agentic-seo-check crawl https://example.com --rule site.sitemap-lastmod-uniform

Or from an assistant, with the MCP tool seo_crawl_site:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "rules": [
    "site.sitemap-lastmod-uniform"
  ]
}

To leave it out of an audit, pass --disable site.sitemap-lastmod-uniform on the command, or disableRules: ["site.sitemap-lastmod-uniform"] to a tool.

All 49 rules