Invented facts in metadata
==========================

Rule · bucket: mechanical · severity: warning · detector: metadata · since: v0.14.0
Section: Things to avoid
Group: Search and sharing

Forbidden:
  `lastModified: new Date()` in a sitemap; a `datePublished` filled in because the field existed; an author, rating or price nobody supplied

Instead:
  Emit a field only where a real value exists in the content. Leave it out otherwise.

A date that is today's on every request is false on every request, and repeated daily it teaches the crawler to disbelieve the field. Structured data is a claim about facts, and a wrong one is worse than a missing one.