← Back to glossary
Sitemap Glossary

What is <changefreq>?

The XML tag that indicates how frequently a page's content is likely to change.

The `<changefreq>` element provides a hint to search engines about how often the content at a URL is expected to change. Valid values are: `always`, `hourly`, `daily`, `weekly`, `monthly`, `yearly`, and `never`.

It's important to note that Google has confirmed they largely ignore this tag. It's treated as a hint, not a directive. Despite this, many sitemap generators still include it for compatibility with other search engines.

The value `always` is typically used for pages that change every time they're accessed (like search results), while `never` is for archived pages that won't change.

Example

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/news</loc>
  <changefreq>hourly</changefreq>
</url>

Work with sitemaps programmatically

SitemapKit's API lets you discover, extract, and parse XML sitemaps from any domain. Get structured JSON data with all sitemap elements including changefreq.

Related Terms