In a recent LinkedIn discussion, Google analyst Gary Illyes revealed that the search engine takes a binary approach when evaluating a website’s lastmod signal from sitemaps.
The revelation came as Illyes encouraged website owners to upgrade to WordPress 6.5, which now natively supports the lastmod element in sitemaps.
When Mark Williams-Cook asked whether Google has a “reputation system” to gauge how much to trust a site’s reported last modified dates, Illyes he stated“It’s binary: we either trust or we don’t.”
There are no shades of gray for Lastmod
The lastmod tag indicates the date of the most recent significant update to a web page, helping search engines prioritize crawling and indexing.
Illyes’ answer suggests that Google doesn’t take into account a website’s history or gradually builds trust in the values of the last modification that is reported.
Google either accepts the last modified dates provided in a site’s sitemap as accurate or ignores them.
This binary approach reinforces the need to properly implement the lastmod tag and only specify dates when significant changes are made.
Illyes praises the WordPress developer community for their work in version 6.5, which automatically populates the lastmod field without additional configuration.
Lastmod accurate essential for tracking prioritization
While convenient for WordPress users, native lastmod support is only beneficial if Google trusts you to use it correctly.
Inaccurate lastmod tags could cause Google to ignore the signal when scheduling crawls.
With Illyes confirming Google’s position, it shows that there is no room for error when using this label.
Why SEJ cares
Understanding how Google works with lastmod can help ensure that Google shows new publication dates in search results when you update your content.
It’s an all-or-nothing situation: if the dates are deemed unreliable, the signal could be ignored across the board.
With the information revealed by Illyes, you can ensure that your implementation follows best practices to the letter.
Featured Image: Danishch/Shutterstock
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