Google On lastmod Tag In XML Sitemap: Update The Date If Your Providing Something New
Google’s John Mueller spoke a bit more about when you should update the date in the lastmod tag in the XML sitemap file. He said on Twitter if you are “providing something new for search engines that you’d like reflected in search,” then update the date, if not, then don’t.
John said, “Are you providing something new for search engines that you’d like reflected in search? If so, flag it. If you’re just changing the timestamp in the footer, sure the page has technically changed too, but should that be prioritized — probably not.”
Here are those tweets:
Are you providing something new for search engines that you’d like reflected in search? If so, flag it. If you’re just changing the timestamp in the footer, sure the page has technically changed too, but should that be prioritized — probably not.
— johnmu is not a chatbot yet 🐀 (@JohnMu) February 24, 2023