How to choose the changefreq value in an XML sitemap

Question

In my sitemap.xml file, I have the following line for every URL:

<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>

But the reality is that most pages don't change very often.

Except there are new pages added frequently to http://example.com/copywriters (sometimes a few new pages a day; other days there might be no new pages or just one or two).

Every day there's a new blog post. So there's a new URL each day that begins with http://example.com/blog/

So, would the following be the correct way to have the sitemap:

• If I remove the line <changefreq>weekly</changefreq> right throughout the document and simply not have a changefreq reference.
• Except for the following 2 URLs which would include <changefreq>daily</changefreq>
  • http://example.com/blog/
  • http://example.com/copywriters

Answer 1

I think that it does not matter so much. I explain better. Of course having changefreq tag for every page could give to S.E.s (Search Engines) an "idea" on how frequently those pages are updated. In reality, S.E.s discover by theirselves how frequently a page is updated and so how much frequently they have to visit every page. Imagine a spammer (or something similar) who put ALWAYS as value of changefreq for every page of his website(s); would the S.E.s be trapped in this fact? Of course no.

Saying that, I think that you can do as you thought.

Answer 2

Google now says priority & change frequency play little role in XML sitemaps. Because Google mostly ignores them, there is no advantage to including them. They aren't going to do anything other than bloat the size of your sitemap.

If you do include them, including them on just the pages that are more likely to change often is a good plan.