Sitemap lastmod, priority and changefreq

Q: Does Google use sitemap priority?

No. Google has stated that it ignores <priority>. It is still valid XML, so leaving it in does no harm, but setting every page to 1.0 achieves nothing.

Q: Does Google use changefreq?

No, Google ignores <changefreq> too. It learns how often a page changes by crawling it. Bing has also said it largely ignores changefreq.

Q: What date format should lastmod use?

W3C Datetime: either a date (2026-09-27) or a full timestamp with timezone (2026-09-27T14:05:00+00:00). A time without a timezone is invalid.

Three optional tags, one that Google actually uses. Here is which, why, and how to get it right.

Tag	Protocol says	Google	Bing
`<lastmod>`	Date the page last changed	Used when consistently accurate	Used, called a key signal
`<changefreq>`	How often it probably changes	Ignored	Largely ignored
`<priority>`	Importance 0.0–1.0 relative to your other pages	Ignored	Largely ignored

Sources: Google Search Central, "Build and submit a sitemap"; Google's 2023 Search Central blog post on sitemap pings and lastmod; Bing Webmaster blog posts on lastmod (2023); the sitemaps.org protocol.

Why accurate lastmod matters: try it

A crawler can only revisit so many pages a day. Accurate dates tell it which ones are worth the trip. Change the strategy and the budget and watch where the visits go.

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The "build date" row is the most common mistake in the wild. Static site generators and some plugins write the deploy time into every <lastmod>. It looks harmless, but a crawler that fetches ten "changed" pages and finds nine identical learns to ignore your dates. Then even your real updates wait for the regular crawl schedule. Our validator flags a sitemap where 90% or more of URLs share one date.

Getting lastmod right

Take the date from where content lives: the CMS's "modified" field, the git commit that touched the page's content, or your product database's updated_at.
Update it for changes to main content, structured data or important links, not for footer, sidebar or ad changes.
Use a date (2026-09-27) unless you publish several times a day; then use a full timestamp with timezone.
Never put a date in the future.
In a sitemap index, each <sitemap> lastmod should be the newest lastmod inside that file. The splitter does this for you.

Should you delete priority and changefreq?

If they're already there, they cost a few bytes per URL and nothing else. Other consumers such as some site search tools read them, so there's no urgency. For a new sitemap, leave them out: SitemapForge's generator turns them off by default. What you should not do is spend time tuning them. A page's importance to Google comes from links and content, not a number in an XML file.

Questions people ask

Does Google use sitemap priority?

No. Google has stated that it ignores <priority>. It is still valid XML, so leaving it in does no harm, but setting every page to 1.0 achieves nothing.

Does Google use changefreq?

No, Google ignores <changefreq> too. It learns how often a page changes by crawling it. Bing has also said it largely ignores changefreq.

Does Google use lastmod?

Yes, when it is consistently and verifiably accurate. Google's documentation says it uses lastmod if it matches reality, for example when compared with the page's actual last modification. Bing has said lastmod is a key signal for its crawler.

What counts as a real modification?

A meaningful change to the main content, structured data or links. Changing a copyright year in the footer, a sidebar widget or a "related posts" block is not a reason to update lastmod.

What date format should lastmod use?

W3C Datetime: either a date (2026-09-27) or a full timestamp with timezone (2026-09-27T14:05:00+00:00). A time without a timezone is invalid.