{"id":34346,"date":"2026-09-19T04:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T04:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.accuwebhosting.com\/blog\/?p=34346"},"modified":"2026-09-19T04:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T04:46:09","slug":"google-sitemap-cache-busting-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.accuwebhosting.com\/blog\/google-sitemap-cache-busting-bad-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Says Daily Changes in Sitemap URLs Is a Bad Idea – Here’s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Some SEO people found a “trick” and tried it on sitemaps. A sitemap is a file that tells Google which pages are on your website. This trick was supposed to make Google visit the sitemap every single day.<\/p>

Someone asked Google’s John Mueller about this trick on Bluesky. They said they saw it on a big website; the sitemap URL was getting a new number added to it every day, like a date stamp. The person doing this skipped a proper Google feature called lastmod (which means “last modified date”) and used this trick instead.<\/p>

Google’s answer was short and clear: don’t do this; it’s a bad idea.<\/b><\/p>

What Is Cache Busting<\/h2>

Cache busting is a real and useful trick, but it’s meant for CSS and JavaScript files (the files that control how a website looks and works), not sitemaps.<\/p>

Here’s how it works: when you update your CSS or JavaScript file, browsers sometimes keep showing the old version because it’s saved in the visitor’s browser (this is called “cache”). To fix this, developers add a small number at the end of the file name, like style.css?v=2. This tells the browser, “this is a new file; download it fresh.” It’s a smart and normal thing to do, for these files.<\/p>

How People Used This Trick on Sitemaps<\/h2>

Someone took this same idea and used it on sitemap files too, which is where the problem starts.<\/p>

Instead of using lastmod (the correct way to tell Google “this page changed”), they added a changing number at the end of the sitemap URL, every single day. The idea was simple: if the URL looks new every day, Google has to visit it again and again.<\/p>

Here is the real conversation that happened:<\/p>

“Hi John, I’ve been trying to learn some more about sitemap.xmls. Heard about this thing called cachebusting by adding a ?v=unix timestamp to the end of a sitemap url in a sitemapindex. In the Dev blog I could only find a comment on accurate lastmod values, I guess it applies too right?” — @seoharbour<\/p>

John Mueller did not say yes or no right away. He asked a question back first:<\/p>

“Why would you use cache-busting in a sitemap file? Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what your goal is though, feel free to elaborate!”<\/p>

The person explained that they saw this happening on a big website, where the sitemap URL changed every day to force Google to visit again.<\/p>

Why Google Said It’s a Bad Idea<\/h2>

After hearing the full story, Mueller gave a clear answer:<\/p>

“I think that’s a bad idea because you’re signalling that the canonical URL for a piece of content should be constantly changing. That’s not good for search engines; it’s not good for your tracking. Having clean, stable URLs is important.”<\/p>

He also pointed to a well-known web rule that says: web addresses (URLs) should not change often.<\/p>

In simple words, here’s what this means:<\/p>

The address of your sitemap should stay the same, always.<\/b> When you keep changing the sitemap’s URL every day, you’re telling Google “this file’s address keeps changing.” That’s confusing for Google. It’s also bad for you, because your own tracking tools and reports get messed up too, you can no longer see clearly how often your sitemap is really being visited, because the address is different every day.<\/p>

Google did not say this trick makes Google crawl your site more or less. Google only said it’s a bad practice because it makes your website’s address look unstable.<\/p>

What You Should Use Instead<\/h2>

Sitemaps already have a proper, correct way to tell Google “this page has changed”; it’s called the lastmod tag. This simply means “last modified date.”<\/p>