An invalid date was found. Google Sitemaps

support
1

Hello,

I get this error every time I try to submit my index.xml to Google Search Console.

Is there any way to fix it?

An invalid date was found. Please fix the date or formatting before resubmitting. Line: 12

https://www.thefreebundle.com/index.xml

My index.xml looks like this:

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <channel>
    <title>{{ if eq  .Title  .Site.Title }}{{ .Site.Title }}{{ else }}{{ with .Title }}{{.}} of {{ end }}{{ .Site.Title }}{{ end }}</title>
    <link>{{ .Permalink }}</link>
    <description>Recent content {{ if ne  .Title  .Site.Title }}{{ with .Title }}in {{.}} {{ end }}{{ end }}of {{ .Site.Title }}</description>
    <generator>Hugo -- gohugo.io</generator>{{ with .Site.LanguageCode }}
    <language>{{.}}</language>{{end}}{{ with .Site.Author.email }}
    <managingEditor>{{.}}{{ with $.Site.Author.name }} ({{.}}){{end}}</managingEditor>{{end}}{{ with .Site.Author.email }}
    <webMaster>{{.}}{{ with $.Site.Author.name }} ({{.}}){{end}}</webMaster>{{end}}{{ with .Site.Copyright }}
    <copyright>{{.}}</copyright>{{end}}{{ if not .Date.IsZero }}
    <lastBuildDate>{{ .Date | safeHTML }}</lastBuildDate>{{ end }}
    {{ with .OutputFormats.Get "RSS" }}
        {{ printf "<atom:link href=%q rel=\"self\" type=%q />" .Permalink .MediaType | safeHTML }}
    {{ end }}
    {{ range .Pages }}
    {{ if .Params.article_img }}
    <item>
      <title>{{ .Title }}</title>
      <link>{{ .Permalink }}</link>
      <pubDate>{{ .Date.Format "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 -0700" | safeHTML }}</pubDate>
      {{ with .Site.Author.email }}<author>{{.}}{{ with $.Site.Author.name }} ({{.}}){{end}}</author>{{end}}
      <guid>{{ .Permalink }}</guid>
      <description>{{ .Summary | html }}</description>
    </item>
    {{ end }}
    {{ end }}
  </channel>
</rss>

If I try to create my sitemap with any other tool, I don’t get any results at all (it is as if sitemaps crawlers can’t read my folders)

For instance:
I can’t get online sitemaps tools to generate a sitemap with the following address:

http://www.thefreebundle.com/issue-1/the-definitive-advent-calendar-of-must-see-christmas-movies/

They read up to issue-1 and that’s it, they don’t read the folders inside.

I can only get a sitemap through HUGO and then Google tells me it is invalid ;(

2

May be because a Pendulum post has the date as <pubDate>Fri, 21 Mar 1941 01:34:07 -0300</pubDate>, even before Internet got invented? :slight_smile:

3

Ahhh that’s when it got published. But Google points me to another line, line 12, not that one. So maybe is not that?

4

Hehe, I was joking. I doubt if the date value is the problem … may be it’s the date format?

5

Actually, it turns out that Pendulum post’s pubDate is the problem. See the xml in browser’s view-source: view-source:https://www.thefreebundle.com/index.xml … that date is indeed on line 12.

The pretty format of xml removes all the minification done intentionally or not, and so that doesn’t tell the exact line number.

1 Like
6

ahhhh damn, you are right. I’ll have to create another invalidation now.

I will drop using my own index.rss.xml and will let Hugo does its thing with the default templates though, just in case.

I’ve just tested it on Google. Works like a charm. Thanks man.