Sitemap priority and changefreq: Does Google Use Them?
Short answer: no. Google’s sitemap documentation says plainly that “Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq> values”, and Bing said the same about both tags in 2025. Setting every page to priority 1.0 or changefreq “daily” won’t get it crawled more often. If you want to influence recrawling, put your effort into accurate <lastmod> dates instead.
What the two tags were meant to do
Both are optional tags from the sitemaps.org protocol, written inside a <url> entry:
<url> <loc>https://example.com/blog/</loc> <lastmod>2026-10-12</lastmod> <changefreq>daily</changefreq> <!-- ignored by Google and Bing --> <priority>0.8</priority> <!-- ignored by Google and Bing --> </url>
changefreq
A hint about how often a page is likely to change. The protocol allows exactly seven values: always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and never. Even the protocol calls it a hint, not a command.
priority
A number from 0.0 to 1.0 (default 0.5) saying how important a URL is compared with your other URLs. The protocol is explicit that it doesn’t compare your pages with other sites, so a high priority never helped a page outrank anyone.
What Google and Bing say today
| Tag | Bing | |
|---|---|---|
<priority> | Ignored | Ignored |
<changefreq> | Ignored | Ignored |
<lastmod> | Used when consistently and verifiably accurate | Used to decide what to recrawl |
Sources: Google’s “Build and submit a sitemap” guide, and Bing’s July 2025 webmaster post on sitemaps in AI-powered search. Older articles that say Google “may” use priority are out of date.
What actually decides how often Google crawls a page
Google’s crawl budget guide splits it into two parts. Crawl capacity is how much your server can take without slowing down. Crawl demand is how much Google wants to crawl, driven mainly by how popular a URL is and how stale Google’s copy is. You influence demand by publishing pages people want, linking to them well, and telling Google honestly when they change (lastmod). See our crawl budget guide.
Mistakes worth fixing anyway
Since search engines ignore these tags, wrong values don’t hurt rankings. A few still deserve a fix, because they make the file invalid or hide real problems:
- Invalid values.
biweekly,quarterlyor a priority of2break the protocol, and strict validators flag them. Use a valid value or remove the tag. - changefreq instead of lastmod. If your sitemap has changefreq but no lastmod, you are giving search engines the hint they ignore and leaving out the one they use.
- Time spent tuning them. Hand-setting priority per page, or debating 0.8 versus 0.9, has no effect on Google or Bing.
What to do with them
- Hand-written or custom sitemaps: leave both tags out. List
<loc>and an honest<lastmod>. - Plugins that add them: fine to leave. Some plugins, such as All in One SEO, let you set priority and frequency per content type; it changes nothing for Google or Bing.
- Frameworks: Next.js’s
sitemap.tsacceptschangeFrequencyandpriorityfields. You can skip them and set onlylastModified.
Our free XML sitemap generator writes no priority or changefreq at all, and adds lastmod only from a real Last-Modified header. For getting dates right, read the lastmod guide.
Frequently asked questions
Does Google use sitemap priority?
No. Google’s sitemap documentation says it ignores <priority> and <changefreq> values.
Does Bing use changefreq or priority?
No. Bing’s July 2025 post on sitemaps says it ignores both tags. It relies on accurate lastmod dates instead.
Should I remove priority and changefreq from my sitemap?
You can. They do no harm when valid, but they add nothing for Google or Bing, and a file without them is simpler to keep correct. If your plugin adds them, leaving them is fine too.
What are the valid changefreq values?
always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and never. Anything else, such as "biweekly", is not valid in the sitemap protocol.
What is the default sitemap priority?
0.5, on a scale from 0.0 to 1.0. The protocol says priority only compares pages within your own site, never against other sites.