Now that Google is encouraging publishers to make use of correct lastmod dates of their sitemap information, what occurs in case your lastmod date is wrong and reveals the unsuitable date. Gary Illyes from Google mentioned both Google trusts your lastmod date or would not, there is no such thing as a in between.
As a reminder, Google (and Bing) beneficial websites upgrade to WordPress 6.5 with a purpose to get the automated lastmod date in your XML sitemap. Gary additionally added that regardless of Google ignorning the lastmod date beforehand, he added, “surprisingly issues could change given sufficient time,” that means, that is now not the case.
Gary Illyes mentioned on LinkedIn yesterday that Google “both belief it or not” with regards to the lastmod date.
Mark Williams-Cook dinner requested Gary:
I assume Google is making its personal judgments about how typically to crawl with out xml sitemap. If I’m specifying lastmod and Google’s alerts persistently discover I haven’t made vital adjustments, do you will have any form of repute system to determine “how a lot” to belief what a web site tells you, or is it simply taken as a weighted sign? Please, Gary, I must know the reply to this for my household Xmas quiz this 12 months. TIA.
Gary Illyes responded:
it is binary, or a minimum of was final time I checked. we both belief it or not.
Mark had an attention-grabbing commentary based mostly on the Google search API leak:
Perhaps “not new” however I discovered this attention-grabbing:
– Google seems to retailer “final vital replace” time/date in epoch format for URLs
– You possibly can provide lastmod in XML sitemap
– Google has boolean on whether or not to belief you or not based mostly on whether or not you are a naughty liar pic.twitter.com/im6LSykcW0
— Mark Williams-Cook dinner (@thetafferboy) June 11, 2024
Forumd dialogue at LinkedIn.
