Google Warns Against Cache Busting Sitemaps

Google's John Mueller has spoken out against using cache busting techniques on sitemaps. Cache busting involves adding a URL parameter to the end of a file, such as a CSS or JavaScript file, to force the browser to load the freshest version.

This technique is often used to prevent stale content from being loaded into a site visitor's browser. However, some SEOs have been using it on sitemaps to force search engines to crawl and index web pages every day.

According to Mueller, this is not a good idea. He explained that using cache busting on sitemaps 'signals that the canonical URL for a piece of content should be constantly changing', which can cause problems for both search engines and site tracking.