priority/changefreq Tags vs Leaving Them Out: Skip Them

priority/changefreq Tags vs Leaving Them Out: Skip Them

A comparison that ends in deletion. Google ignores both priority and changefreq.

What actually influences crawl:
— Accurate lastmod (used as a signal).
— Internal linking depth.
— Historical update patterns Google observes itself.

When people keep priority/changefreq anyway:
— Bing still reads them loosely. If Bing is a real channel for you, set them honestly.
— Otherwise they're dead weight that creates a false sense of control.

The risk of keeping them: teams spend hours tuning priority=0.8 vs 0.6 — pure waste — instead of fixing lastmod accuracy, which Google does use.

Pass/fail:
— ✅ lastmod present and accurate on every entry.
— ✅ priority/changefreq either removed or set truthfully for Bing.

Definition of done: effort goes into lastmod, not into placebo tags.