Sitemap Priorities & Lastmod
Priority and lastmod are optional XML sitemap fields — priority (0.0–1.0) signals relative importance among URLs on the same site; lastmod is the last modification date.
In context
Google has stated repeatedly that it largely ignores the priority field and uses lastmod selectively. Best practice for 2026: include lastmod with accurate values (engines do use it to prioritise re-crawl), don't bother with priority unless you have a specific reason. The most common lastmod mistake is setting it to today's date on every URL on every build — engines learn to discount your lastmod values when they're untrustworthy. Set lastmod to the genuine last meaningful change.
Toronto SEO's sitemap script reads each content file's actual last-modified timestamp and emits accurate lastmod — engines recrawl updated content faster as a result.
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