Different dates in sitemap.xml

[fagricipni]

As I understand it, when a file is requested from my site, the modification date given is based on the time that the file was last changed at all, which is as it should be. But I have a sitemap.xml file, and in that file I give dates in the lastmod element; what I have been doing is only changing dates for files in the Sitemap file when a substantive change is made to a file. Changing the standard navigation bar on all files, or even a particular file, I do not consider a substantive change; nor is correcting some typos where the typo does not change the meaning of the expression it occurs in; eg, changing teh to the would not count as substantive. However, this means that a search engine will find that my Sitemap lastmod times are not consistent with the times delivered by the server for those particular files. If the Sitemap timestamps were later than those delivered by the server, one might reasonably suspect that someone is attempting to make a site seem more active than it actually is. However, in my case the Sitemap timestamps are earlier than the ones given by the server; the only consequence of this that I can think of is that the search engine might visit my pages less frequently than it normally would if I had not given my dates in a Sitemap file; this would seem to have no negative consequences for the search engine.

However, what I want to know is if I am likely to be "punished" by the search engine for having inconsistent timestamps even if it is in the direction of lessening the load on the search engine; my site doesn't have enough activity yet to worry about the load on FutureQuest's servers, though if I do start to get the activity level from actual browsing that I hope I do, then the consequence of reducing the load on FutureQuest's servers becomes more practically significant, even if not unnecessarily increasing the load on the servers is on my mind even now.

[Terra]

I wouldn't worry about any server loading issues for static content... Once the file has been served, it will be cached by the Linux kernel if it is accessed enough to keep it hot...

[fagricipni]

It's good to know that I do not have to worry about optimizations for static files, but no one has answered the question I asked: is it likely that I will be penalized by search engines for having older last-modified dates in my sitemap.xml that the actual last-modified dates served with the files themselves? I mean being at a disadvantage over someone else whose last edit was at the same time as the last-modified date in my sitemap.xml; ie, will I be hurt for my honest in reporting the last substantive change in my Sitemap as opposed to the actual last true change in the file, which I have the notion of doing so as not to report trivial changes to my pages?

[sheila]

I'd think you'd be better off asking that question in an SEO community or forum. We do have a few members of this community who have some knowledge in that area, but you're going to have more luck with it in a community with more specialists on the topic. Even then the answers are usually speculation. The only ones who can answer authoritatively are the ones who run the search engines. Unless they answer, it's all guesses.

I can't think of a reason why the search engine would penalize for a situation such as you describe, but then I have little interest or special knowledge in the SEO field.

[fagricipni]

I guess that since there were threads about SEO in this sub-forum, I though that this would be a good place to ask; maybe I was wrong. Thank you for the suggestion to try a more specialized forum.