Do we need to update our sitemaps each time our content changes?

[Todoist]

Dear SEO experts!

We have created sites maps to get our international sub-domains indexed, however we're unsure if we have to update our sitemaps each time our content changes on our many landing pages which are translated to 17 different languages? Obviously the goal is to make it dynamic so it updates itself.

I hope you can help us with some advice.

Thanks a lot!

Allan

[Todoist]

Thanks a lot for your answers, fantastic!

Best regards,

Allan

[Milian]

Ahh yes, <lastmod>.  How did I forget this, I'm usually such a stickler on sitemaps.   Do you have any further info on 2% tolerance Alan, or is that just your personal findings? </lastmod>

[AlanMosley]

I have to disagree, if you include <a><lastmod></a>2012-07-24T08:36:20Zlastmod> tag, then yes you should update it. Bing for example will ignore your site map if it is not accurate. The have a tolerance of about 2% errors.

If your site is only small, and all your pages are linked, then I would not even bother with a sitemap. Bing also stats that you should not list all your pages in a sitemap, but only your key pages.

Sitemaps don't help rankings only indexing, on large sites it is good to tell the search engine what pages have changed, or what pages are good pages to find links to other pages,

[neenor]

Hi Allan

You don't need to update the sitemap if the content has changed but the URL of the page remains the same. The only time I update sitemaps is 1. if there are new pages and 2. if we remove pages. If you don't update the sitemap after you remove a page then you'll get 404s (e.g. a busy e-commerce site when products are sold out and not going to be restocked, you'd remove the page).

[Milian]

Hey Allan,

You only need to update your sitemaps if you are creating new pages; if you are simply updating the content on pages that already exist in the sitemaps, you do not need to update them.