Adding <lastmod> to improve Google SEO
R
Ryan Cohn
Hi team, quick feature request for our job board (board 14472, ASC Job Board).
Our job sitemap (https://ascjobs.hstpathways.com/sitemap-jobs-1.xml) currently only lists bare <loc> URLs with no <lastmod> date on each entry. Could you add <lastmod> to each job URL in the sitemap, reflecting that job’s posting date (or last-updated date if it changes)? I believe you already track this. It’s the same date used for “Posting date” in our importer config.
This matters for SEO: Google explicitly uses <lastmod> as a freshness signal to help decide how quickly to (re)crawl time-sensitive content like job postings. We have a large, fast-changing job board (2,700+ active postings, high daily turnover), and right now Google has no signal in the sitemap about which jobs are new or recently updated, adding <lastmod> should help prioritize crawling.
Happy to provide more detail if useful. Thanks!