Sitemap Generator Forum

Have an interesting problem with a site that we recently generated a site map for, only to discover that the sitemap generated wasn't showing any <lastmod> information, i.e. time and date, this despite the fact that we had selected 'use server response' from the options.

I believe (having read an earlier post on here) this info is pulled from the "last-modified" http header returned by the server.

I don't believe this is an isolated incident of just one site on the server because several other randomly selected sites on the same shared server are missing this information.

What settings should we be looking for on the server to ensure that this information is provided?

EDIT. Can you move this into the 'Free online sitemap generator category'.

Hello,

can you please let me know an example URL that has incorrect lastmod attribute assigned in sitemap?
Please check with http headers viewer that last modification http header is returned by server: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/http-headers-viewer.html

Hi Oleg,

The website is on a shared server and it would appear that the hosting company carried out tests on other sites residing on this server and the same problem was/is occurring.

I've checked the header info using your link provided, and compared it to a site where the <lastmod> info is showing, and they appear to be nearly the same (apart from file size) so everyone is scratching their heads as to why the <lastmod> info isn't showing in the sitemap.

I've emailed you with the domain name and the hosting company - I tried sending you a private message but received the following message: 'An Error Has Occurred! - You are not allowed to send personal messages'.

Hello,

replied to your email. Looks like your server doesn't return "last-modified" http headers.

Hi Oleg,

Thanks for your reply.

How I missed that info on the raw header information I don't know.

However, for any guests reading this post, the Raw HTTP Headers for the website with the <lastmod> tag looks like:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:06:59 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:37:18 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 6189
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

And the website with the missing <lastmod> tag looks like:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:04:36 GMT
Server: Apache
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 3967
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

I need to have a word with the hosting company now that we know what is missing.

Once again Oleg, thank you for your help with this.