The direct answer
Google's sitemap documentation contains the sentence "Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq> values." There is no nuance to read into it and no configuration that changes it.
This matters because a great deal of older SEO advice treats these as levers, and some tools still present them as settings worth thinking about. Setting priority 1.0 on your homepage and 0.3 on old posts accomplishes nothing at Google. Setting changefreq to daily does not make anything get crawled daily.
Other search engines have historically had their own handling, and none have ever committed to treating these as instructions either. Treat them as vestigial.
Why generators still emit them
Because they are valid parts of the sitemap protocol, which is older than the current guidance, and because removing a field from a widely-used generator breaks nobody's site while confusing some users.
So their presence is not a sign that your sitemap is badly built. It is harmless noise. There is no benefit to stripping them out and no penalty for leaving them in.
What is worth avoiding is spending time on them, or paying anyone to optimise them.
| Attribute | Used by Google? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| priority | No, explicitly ignored | Ignore it. Leave whatever your generator emits |
| changefreq | No, explicitly ignored | Ignore it |
| lastmod | Yes, if accurate and verifiable | Get it right, or leave it out |
| loc | Yes, it is the point of the file | Must be the canonical URL |
lastmod is the one that counts
Google says it uses the lastmod value "if it's consistently and verifiably" accurate, for instance by comparing it against when the page's content actually changed. Its guidance is that lastmod should reflect meaningful updates to the main content, structured data or links, rather than trivial edits.
The practical consequence is a trap that many sites fall into. A generator that writes the current date to every URL on every build has made lastmod verifiably wrong, because a crawler can compare the claim against the page and see nothing changed. Having lied about it once, the value stops being useful.
So there are two acceptable states: lastmod reflecting real content changes, or no lastmod at all. Automatically stamping today's date on everything is worse than omitting it.
What to spend the effort on instead
If you were going to tune sitemap attributes, here is where the same hour returns something.
Make sure the loc values are the canonical URLs, not variants with tracking parameters or alternate paths. A sitemap listing non-canonical URLs sends a conflicting signal.
Make sure the URLs return 200 rather than redirecting or 404ing. A sitemap full of dead entries undermines itself as a statement about what matters.
And make sure the pages in the sitemap are linked to from your own site. A page you ask search engines to crawl while linking to it from nowhere is a contradiction, and internal linking is a signal that demonstrably does something, unlike priority.
Common questions
Does Google use sitemap priority?+
No. Google's documentation states that it ignores priority and changefreq values. Setting them has no effect on crawling or indexing.
Should I remove priority and changefreq from my sitemap?+
No need. They are valid parts of the protocol and harmless. Just do not spend time tuning them or pay anyone to.
Does lastmod matter?+
Yes, conditionally. Google says it uses lastmod when the value is consistently and verifiably accurate, and that it should reflect meaningful content changes rather than trivial ones.
My generator sets lastmod to today on every build. Is that a problem?+
Yes. It makes the value verifiably inaccurate, since a crawler can compare it against the page and see nothing changed. Either make lastmod reflect real changes or leave it out.
What should I optimise in a sitemap instead?+
That loc values are canonical URLs, that every listed URL returns 200, and that the pages are also linked from your own site. Internal linking does something measurable; priority does not.
Sources