Google: Sitemap Dates vs Web Page Dates

Apr 25, 2019 - 8:26 am 2 by

Google Time Stamp

John Mueller from Google explained on Twitter the difference between the timestamp date in an XML Sitemaps lasmod date and the date on a web page. John said the sitemaps lastmod is when the page as a whole was last changed for crawling/indexing. The date on page is the date to be associated with the primary content on the page.

John Mueller first said "A page can change without its primary content changing." He said that doesn't think "crawling needs to be synced to the date associated with the content." The example he gave was for "site redesigns or site moves are pretty clearly disconnected from the content date."

He then added this tweet:

So there you have it.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 15, 2025

Jul 15, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Maps

Google Local Ranking Documentation Updated

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Automatically Adding Social Media Links To Businesses

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Console Analytics API New Metadata Incomplete Data Points

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google AdSense

Google AdSense PIN Verification Issues

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:21 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Requests Text/WhatsApp Number During Setup

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google: You Cannot Isolate Specific Ranking Factor Successes