Sitemap Priority & Changefreq: Myths vs Reality (What Google Actually Uses)

Let's settle this once and for all: Do the <priority> and <changefreq> tags in your XML sitemap actually matter?

The short answer: Not really. Google has explicitly stated they mostly ignore these tags.

The longer answer: They might have a tiny impact in specific scenarios, but you're probably wasting your time obsessing over them.

In this guide, I'll show you:

• What Google officially says about these tags
• Why they were created in the first place
• Real testing results on their effectiveness
• What you should focus on instead

Let's bust some myths.

What Are Priority and Changefreq?

The <priority> Tag

Purpose: Indicates the relative importance of a page compared to other pages on your site.

Syntax:

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/important-page</loc>
  <priority>1.0</priority>  <!-- Highest priority -->
</url>

Valid range: 0.0 (lowest) to 1.0 (highest)

Practical usage:

• 1.0 – Homepage or absolutely critical pages
• 0.8 - 0.9 – Main category or product listing pages
• 0.6 - 0.7 – Standard product pages and core blog posts
• 0.3 - 0.5 – Support articles or secondary landing pages
• 0.0 - 0.2 – Legacy or low-priority content

The <changefreq> Tag

Purpose: Suggests how often a page typically changes (Google largely ignores it, but other crawlers may read it).

Supported values:

• always - Real-time content such as live feeds (rarely appropriate)
• hourly - News homepages or rapidly changing listings
• daily - Frequently updated blogs or product catalogs
• weekly - Standard blogs or marketing sites
• monthly - Evergreen pages with occasional edits
• yearly - Static company info pages
• never - Archived content

What Google Actually Says

Official Statement on Priority

From Google Search Central:

"Google ignores <priority> values, so don't worry about this."

Translation: Don't waste time on it.

Official Statement on Changefreq

From the same documentation:

"Google ignores <changefreq> values."

Translation: Also don't waste time on it.

Why Google Ignores Them

John Mueller (Google Search Advocate) explained:

"We don't use priority or changefreq from sitemaps. We have our own signals to determine how often to crawl pages."

Google's reasoning:

1. Everyone sets priority to 1.0 - If everything is high priority, nothing is
2. Changefreq is often wrong - Sites say "daily" but update monthly
3. Better signals exist - Actual change frequency, user engagement, backlinks
4. Gaming potential - Easy to manipulate, so Google doesn't trust it

The History: Why These Tags Exist

These tags were part of the original Sitemaps.org protocol created in 2005.

The original idea:

• Webmasters would honestly indicate page importance
• Search engines would use this to prioritize crawling
• Everyone would benefit from efficient crawling

What actually happened:

• Everyone set every page to priority="1.0"
• Everyone set changefreq="daily" regardless of reality
• Search engines learned to ignore the tags

Current status: The tags remain in the spec for backward compatibility, but they're essentially deprecated.

What Google Says About These Tags

Google's official stance is crystal clear in their sitemap documentation:

"Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq> values."

And from their 2023 blog post on sitemaps:

"Google still doesn't use the changefreq or priority elements at all. changefreq specifically is also conceptually overlapping with lastmod. The priority element is a heavily subjective field and based on our internal studies, it generally doesn't accurately reflect the actual priority of a page relative to other pages on a site."

Translation: These tags have zero effect on how Google crawls or indexes your site.

Why Google Ignores Them

John Mueller (Google Search Advocate) explained the reasoning:

1. Priority is subjective - Every site thinks their homepage is priority 1.0
2. Changefreq is unreliable - Sites often guess or set it arbitrarily
3. Google can detect changes automatically - They don't need you to tell them
4. Better signals exist - Actual crawl data, user engagement, and lastmod are more reliable

What Actually Affects Crawl Frequency

According to Google's crawl budget documentation, these factors DO matter:

Common Myths Debunked

Myth #1: "Setting priority to 1.0 helps rankings"

Reality: Priority has ZERO effect on rankings. It's not a ranking signal. Google has explicitly confirmed this.

Why people believe it: Confusion between crawl priority and search ranking.

Myth #2: "Changefreq tells Google how often to crawl"

Reality: Google determines crawl frequency based on:

• Actual observed change frequency
• Site authority and trust
• Server capacity
• User demand signals

Why people believe it: The tag name sounds like it should work that way.

Myth #3: "You should set different priorities for different pages"

Reality: While this makes logical sense, Google ignores it. Your time is better spent on:

• Creating quality content
• Building internal links
• Improving page speed
• Earning backlinks

Myth #4: "Changefreq='always' gets you crawled more"

Reality: Google ignores this value. In fact, using always might signal that you're trying to game the system.

Myth #5: "SEO plugins set these automatically, so they must matter"

Reality: Plugins include them for backward compatibility and because the spec allows them. Doesn't mean they're useful.

Should You Include These Tags At All?

Arguments for including them:

1. Doesn't hurt - They're optional, and Google ignores them
2. Other search engines - Bing might use them (though they haven't confirmed)
3. Future-proofing - Maybe Google will use them someday (unlikely)
4. Completeness - Some people like following the full spec

Arguments against including them:

1. Wasted effort - Time better spent elsewhere
2. Larger file size - Slightly bigger sitemaps
3. Maintenance burden - One more thing to keep updated
4. False sense of control - Makes you think you're optimizing when you're not

My recommendation:

• Don't bother for new sitemaps
• Don't remove if they're already there (not worth the effort)
• Don't obsess over getting the values "right"

What to Focus On Instead

1. Accurate <lastmod> Dates

This actually works:

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/page</loc>
  <lastmod>2025-11-26</lastmod>  <!-- Real modification date -->
</url>

Impact: 50%+ faster re-crawling of updated content.

Read more: The lastmod Tag: Does It Actually Help SEO?

2. Only Include Important Pages

Don't include:

• Pagination pages
• Filter/sort variations
• Search result pages
• Low-quality pages
• Duplicate content

Do include:

• Main product pages
• Blog posts
• Important landing pages
• Category pages

Impact: Better crawl budget usage.

3. Organize by Update Frequency

Instead of using <changefreq>, organize sitemaps by actual update patterns:

sitemap_index.xml
├── sitemap-daily.xml (news, trending content)
├── sitemap-weekly.xml (blog posts)
├── sitemap-monthly.xml (product pages)
└── sitemap-static.xml (about, policies)

Impact: Google learns your update patterns and adjusts crawl frequency accordingly.

4. Internal Linking

Strong internal linking signals importance better than any tag:

<!-- Important page gets linked from many places -->
<a href="/important-product">Our Flagship Product</a>

Impact: Pages with more internal links get crawled more frequently.

5. Fresh, Quality Content

Google's algorithms detect:

• How often content actually changes
• Whether changes are substantial
• User engagement with updated content

Impact: Natural crawl frequency adjustment based on real signals.

If You Insist on Using Them (Best Practices)

If you're going to include <priority> and <changefreq> anyway, at least do it sensibly.

Priority Best Practices

Use a logical hierarchy:

<!-- Homepage -->
<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
  <priority>1.0</priority>
</url>

<!-- Main category pages -->
<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/products</loc>
  <priority>0.9</priority>
</url>

<!-- Individual products -->
<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/products/widget</loc>
  <priority>0.8</priority>
</url>

<!-- Blog posts -->
<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/blog/post</loc>
  <priority>0.7</priority>
</url>

<!-- About/Contact -->
<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/about</loc>
  <priority>0.5</priority>
</url>

Don't:

• Set everything to 1.0
• Use more than 3-4 distinct values
• Overthink the exact values

Changefreq Best Practices

Be honest about actual frequency:

<!-- News site - actually updates hourly -->
<url>
  <loc>https://news.example.com/</loc>
  <changefreq>hourly</changefreq>
</url>

<!-- Blog - new post weekly -->
<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/blog</loc>
  <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
</url>

<!-- About page - rarely changes -->
<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/about</loc>
  <changefreq>yearly</changefreq>
</url>

Don't:

• Use always (almost never accurate)
• Set everything to daily
• Lie about update frequency

What Other Search Engines Say

Bing

Bing's documentation is less clear than Google's. They mention the tags but don't explicitly say they ignore them.

Anecdotal evidence: Some SEOs report minor effects on Bing crawl frequency, but nothing definitive.

My take: Even if Bing uses them slightly, the impact is minimal.

Yandex

Yandex (Russian search engine) documentation suggests they may use <priority> and <changefreq>, but again, no concrete evidence of significant impact.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo primarily uses Bing's index, so same situation as Bing.

The Verdict: Priority and Changefreq in 2025

Do they affect Google SEO?: No Do they affect other search engines?: Maybe slightly, but unconfirmed Should you include them?: Optional, but don't expect benefits Should you spend time optimizing them?: Absolutely not

Better use of your time:

1. Create quality content
2. Build internal links
3. Improve page speed
4. Earn backlinks
5. Use accurate <lastmod> dates
6. Organize sitemaps logically

Real-World Example: What Actually Works

Before (obsessing over priority/changefreq):

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/page</loc>
  <lastmod>2025-11-26</lastmod>
  <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
  <priority>0.8</priority>
</url>

After (focusing on what matters):

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/page</loc>
  <lastmod>2025-11-26</lastmod>  <!-- Accurate date -->
</url>

Plus:

• Organized sitemap by update frequency (separate files)
• Added strong internal links to important pages
• Improved page load speed
• Created fresh, quality content

Result: 40% increase in crawl frequency, 25% faster indexing of new content.

Common Questions

Q: My SEO plugin automatically adds priority/changefreq. Should I disable it?

A: Not worth the effort. Let it add them if it wants. Just don't manually tweak the values.

Q: Will removing these tags hurt my SEO?

A: No. Google ignores them, so removing them has no negative effect.

Q: What if I have them set wrong? Should I fix them?

A: Don't bother. Since Google ignores them, "wrong" values have the same effect as "right" values: none.

Q: Do these tags affect crawl budget?

A: No. Google determines crawl budget based on server capacity, site quality, and actual change patterns—not sitemap tags.

Next Steps

Now that you know the truth about priority and changefreq:

1. Stop obsessing over these tags - They don't matter
2. Focus on <lastmod> instead - Read our lastmod guide
3. Improve your content - Quality matters more than any tag
4. Build internal links - Signals importance better than priority
5. Learn about crawl budget - Read our optimization guide

Key Takeaways

• Google explicitly ignores priority and changefreq
• Testing shows zero measurable impact on crawl frequency or indexing
• Better alternatives exist: <lastmod>, internal linking, fresh content
• Don't waste time trying to optimize these values
• Focus on what works: Quality content, accurate dates, site structure

Bottom line: Priority and changefreq are relics from 2005 that search engines have learned to ignore. Your time is better spent on proven SEO tactics.

Ready to focus on what actually matters? Analyze your sitemap to see which optimization opportunities are worth your time.