Sitemaps vs. Revisit-After

What kind of weight difference is there between the revisit-after META tag and the 'frequency' element in the sitemaps? I wonder if you specify in the sitemap that it will override the meta tag or how do they play into each other?

 

A revisit-after meta tag is NOT supported by any major search engines like G or Y. More info You can find here: http://www.seoconsultants.com/meta-tags/revisit-after.asp

 

So then what determines how often a Search Engine comes back to check for new data?

 

Time really. If you show the SE's that you always have new content, they will return frequenty.

 

What do you mean 'show new content'? I see search engines frequently visiting my pages, but I haven't updated ANY of my content in about 3 months. I'm wondering if I should create a sitemap that specifies to only revisit my pages every month or what I should do about it. They're wasting my bandwidth and giving unfair hit results for my analytics. Any ideas how to control the Googlebot better? I want to limit the .. 'visiting hours' as it may be.

 

Unless you absolutely can't afford the bandwidth, I would not suggest limiting the search engines in any way.

I would really not worry about this. Work on increasing you content and traffic, not limiting the search engines who send you said traffic. Good luck...