Should you still fill in the priority and frequency in your XML sitemaps?

Why does Google ignore these standard sitemap protocol tags?

The sitemap.xml standard historically includes three optional attributes: priority (0.0 to 1.0), changefreq (always, hourly, daily, etc.), and lastmod (last modified date). These tags were meant to guide search engines on the relative importance of pages and their update frequency.

In practice, Google found a massive abuse rate. Thousands of sites assigned priority=1.0 to all their pages, or declared changefreq=daily while the content remained static for months. The algorithm thus learned to ignore these unreliable self-declared signals to focus on indicators it observes itself: actual content modification frequency, crawl volume allocated to the domain, and URL popularity.

What remains as an exploitable signal in a sitemap?

The <lastmod> tag is the only element that Google still actively uses. It indicates the date of the last effective modification of a page. If this date is recent and consistent with what Googlebot observes during crawling, it can speed up the reindexing of an updated URL.

Note: Google cross-references this data with its own analysis of the content. If you declare lastmod=yesterday but the HTML hasn't shifted a pixel, the signal loses all credibility. The consistency between declaration and reality is crucial—a sitemap that lies erodes the crawler's trust.

Should I remove these tags from my existing sitemaps?

No, it's not necessary. Google simply ignores them; they do not harm. However, avoid spending time optimizing, adjusting, or building complex systems to calculate dynamic priorities. It’s work for nothing.

If you generate your sitemaps through a CMS or script, you can either remove these tags to lighten the file and speed up its parsing or leave them with default values (priority=0.5, changefreq=weekly). The key is to stop investing energy in them and focus on lastmod.

• Priority and changefreq are ignored by Google — they are practically useless now.
• Lastmod remains the only signal utilized, provided it is reliable and consistent with actual content.
• Avoid abusing lastmod: declaring a recent date on unchanged content degrades the crawler's trust.
• Focus on quality: a clean, up-to-date sitemap with no orphaned URLs or 404s is better than a sitemap stuffed with useless tags.
• Streamlining the file can speed up parsing if your site generates large sitemaps (tens of thousands of URLs).

Is this statement consistent with field observations?

Yes, and for a long time. Experienced SEOs noticed as early as the 2010s that manipulating priority or changefreq changed nothing in crawling behavior. Real-world tests—sites with priority=1.0 vs sites with priority=0.1 on identical pages—showed no measurable difference in visit frequency or indexing speed.

Mueller is stating the obvious, but it's helpful: too many CMSs and plugins continue to offer elaborate interfaces to “optimize” these tags. It’s best to officially clarify that it's a waste of time. What matters is the content strategy and the ability to maintain accurate and honest modification dates.

What nuances should be added to this claim?

Google is not the only engine. Bing, for example, has historically claimed to take changefreq into account in certain scenarios (news sites, fast-moving feeds). It’s hard to know if that is still the case, but if you are targeting multi-channel traffic, keeping these tags may have marginal relevance. [To be verified] — no recent public data confirms the actual impact on Bing.

Another point: lastmod remains a weak signal. It only speeds up reindexing if crawl budget is already available and the page has a history of frequent updates. On a site with 10,000 pages crawled once a month, displaying lastmod=yesterday will not miraculously trigger a recrawl within 24 hours. The actual crawl budget is still determined by domain authority, URL depth, and overall site activity.

When does this rule not apply?

If you are using a sitemap for a vertical engine or a third-party aggregator (e-commerce product feeds, content syndication, internal search APIs), these tags may still play a role. Some third-party parsers strictly adhere to the sitemap protocol conventions, especially to prioritize processing order in a queue.

In these B2B or technical contexts—outside of Google—it may be relevant to maintain a consistent logic in priority and changefreq. But for classic Google SEO, it's unnecessary. Distinguish between uses: a sitemap intended for Google crawling does not necessarily have the same structure as a sitemap intended to feed a third-party platform.

What should I do concretely right now?

Audit your current sitemaps. If you are spending developer time or if your CMS is running complex calculations to adjust priority/changefreq, stop. Simplify generation: list of URLs + reliable lastmod, that’s it. This reduces server load and speeds up file generation.

Focus on the consistency of lastmod. Ensure that the date refers to the last significant editorial modification, not a minor change (meta tag, tracking, sidebar widget). If your CMS does not provide this granularity, adapt the code or use a custom field to track real updates.

What mistakes should absolutely be avoided?

Do not lie about lastmod to force a recrawl. Google detects the gap between the declared date and the actual content, and this degrades trust in your domain. Over time, the crawler may even completely ignore your lastmod tags if they are systematically incorrect.

Also, avoid generating overloaded sitemaps: too many URLs (beyond 50,000 per file), orphaned URLs, redirects, 404s. A clean, lightweight sitemap—even without priority/changefreq—will always be more effective than a bloated sitemap stuffed with junk signals.

How can I check that my sitemap is optimal?

Analyze the Search Console reports: Sitemaps section, “Discovered Pages” tab. Google tells you how many URLs have been read and how many indexed. If the gap is significant, the problem is likely not the sitemap but the quality of the pages or the crawl budget allocated to the domain.

Test lastmod consistency: crawl your own site with Screaming Frog or OnCrawl, extract the HTTP modification dates (Last-Modified header) and compare them with the declared dates in the sitemap. Obvious discrepancies reveal a generation bug that should be corrected as a priority.

• Remove or ignore the priority and changefreq tags in your optimization processes—they are no longer useful.
• Ensure that lastmod reflects the last substantial editorial modification of the main content.
• Eliminate orphaned URLs, 404s, and redirects from your sitemaps—only indexable content should appear there.
• Check the consistency between lastmod in the sitemap and the Last-Modified HTTP headers returned by the server.
• Analyze Search Console reports to detect gaps between discovered and indexed URLs.
• Simplify the generation of your sitemaps to reduce server load and speed up parsing on Google's side.