Google’s John Mueller spoke a bit extra about when you need to replace the date within the lastmod tag within the XML sitemap file. He stated on Twitter if you’re “offering one thing new for search engines like google that you simply’d like mirrored in search,” then replace the date, if not, then do not.
John stated, “Are you offering one thing new for search engines like google that you simply’d like mirrored in search? In that case, flag it. Should you’re simply altering the timestamp within the footer, positive the web page has technically modified too, however ought to that be prioritized — in all probability not.”
Listed here are these tweets:
Are you offering one thing new for search engines like google that you simply’d like mirrored in search? In that case, flag it. Should you’re simply altering the timestamp within the footer, positive the web page has technically modified too, however ought to that be prioritized — in all probability not.
— johnmu will not be a chatbot but 🐀 (@JohnMu) February 24, 2023
John added, “The problem is extra that some CMS’s / servers set the lastmod to the present date/time for all pages. This makes that information ineffective. Good CMS’s setting it thoughtfully, even when not at all times excellent, is way more helpful.”
As a reminder, in 2015 Google stated they do not actually use the lastmod date however then modified that in 2020 they stated they do. The present Google documentation says, “Google makes use of the lastmod worth if it is persistently and verifiably (for instance by evaluating to the final modification of the web page) correct.”
Microsoft Bing just lately stated the lastmod date is essential and offered tremendous helpful stats on how folks replace the date:
- 58% of hosts have no less than one XML sitemap.
- 84% of those sitemaps have a lastmod attribute set.
- 79% have lastmod values appropriate.
- 18% have lastmod values not accurately set.
- 3% has lastmod values for less than among the URLs.
- 16% of those sitemaps do not have a lastmod attribute set.
- 42% of hosts don’t have one XML sitemap
Discussion board dialogue at Twitter.
