Sitemap lastmod change. Triggers Penalty?

[zerillos]

I've realized that the lastmod atribute in my sitemap is not set correctly. It's not the same time as the server time and I have to change it. I have to go from GMT to EST.

EST=GMT+ 5 hours.

If I do that I will tell google that every single page of my website has been updated and is 5 hours newer.

My question is: could this trigger a spam penalty or any other penalty with Mr. G?

Thank you!

[tedster]

I've never heard of any such problem and I'd say you're quite safe. Here are some relevant points, taken from Google's Sitemap Help [google.com]:

The lastmod tag is optional....

This date should be in W3C Datetime format [w3.org]. This format allows you to omit the time portion, if desired, and use YYYY-MM-DD....

This profile defines two ways of handling time zone offsets:

1. Times are expressed in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), with a special UTC designator ("Z").

2. Times are expressed in local time, together with a time zone offset in hours and minutes. A time zone offset of "+hh:mm" indicates that the date/time uses a local time zone which is "hh" hours and "mm" minutes ahead of UTC.