Is your sitemap telling Google the truth?

Yes, when it can trust it. Google says it uses lastmod if it's consistently and verifiably accurate, and counts a change to the main content, structured data, or links as a real change. A site that stamps every page with today's date on each rebuild gives Google a reason to stop trusting its dates.

Not for Google, which ignores both. They do no harm, so there's no need to remove them, but don't spend effort tuning them.

Submit it once in Search Console (Sitemaps → Add a new sitemap) and name it in robots.txt with a Sitemap: line. Google rereads it on its own from then on. Google used to accept a “ping” when a sitemap changed. That was retired in 2023, so there's nothing else to do.

A sitemap tells Google a page exists. It doesn't make Google index it. Google decides based on the page's quality and how much it trusts your site. A new site's pages often wait weeks in “Discovered, currently not indexed.”

Nothing from your site. We read robots.txt, the sitemap, and a sample of up to 10 pages for this check, then discard them. To stop abuse, we count checks per visitor IP address, stored only as a scrambled code that can't be turned back into the address.