Sitemap priority/changefreq vs lastmod — only one still matters

Sitemap priority/changefreq vs lastmod — only one still matters
Client's dev spent a day tuning values across 10k URLs. Google ignored every one.
— and : Google publicly stopped trusting them. Spammers gamed them to death. Pure noise now.
— : Google DOES use it — if it's accurate. Lie about it (touch every URL's date on every deploy) and they stop trusting yours too.
The move: strip priority/changefreq, they're clutter. Make lastmod reflect REAL content changes only, not template tweaks or rebuilds.
The play that works: only update lastmod when the actual page content changed, then ping the sitemap. Honest lastmod gets your fresh pages recrawled fast. Fake it and you've trained Google to skip your signal entirely.