The topic we want to address in this article is the creep budget. This is an interesting and challenging topic that Google has officially announced that we should not worry about, but several unofficial comments are on the sidelines. This has led to misconceptions about Google’s crawl budgets and crawler bots and creeps budgets’ main definition and function!
If you would like to know what a crawl budget is and what role Google crawlers play in this story, we suggest you join us at the end of this article. At the end of this article, in addition to learning about the crawling budget factors of the site, you will learn how to put aside the misconceptions that waste the site’s budget and take steps to increase the crawl budget and Google crawlers’ intimate friendship with the site. Be.
Familiarity with the hard-working crawlers of the web world; google crawler bots.
Most people in the real world are scared of reptiles, which has even spread to the web. Examples are Google crawlers or hard-working reptiles that many web admins have strange beliefs about; While we owe the indexing of pages and visibility of our site to these hardworking little ones!
Google crawler tasks are classified into three levels: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking. Crawling web pages is a task tied to the subject of the site crawl budget. Google’s robots like to know about anything new that enters the space, From articles and products to movies, photos, etc. Once the content task is clear to them, they index it so that Google users can access the content as well. In the final stage, the sites are ranked based on various factors.
But one question! How do these clever bots figure out how much time they have to spend reviewing the content of each site? How do they know that we have put new content on the site and they should visit it? The answer to this question is specified in the next section and the definition of the concept of creep budget.
What is a crawl budget? When Google crawlers are activated
One of the most exciting parts of Google’s crawler work is the call to action of these bots. Unbeknownst to us, through the links on the new page and the index request with the URL inspection tool of Google Search Console, we say to the sharp and sharp crawlers of Google: “Hello comrade! We have added new content to the web. “Would you like to see it?”
What do you think Google’s robots do when they receive this signal?
Good job! They look at our site file to see how often they should visit our site. These hard-working reptiles are very busy and have to go to different sites. As a result, they have reached an agreement with Google to define a “creep budget” for each site. As we said in the previous section, the creep budget is tied to the job description of Google bots.
But what is a crawl budget? The creep budget is the number of pages on our site that Google crawlers crawl and index over specific periods (for example, one day). By allocating the crawl budget, Google has fairly determined the sites’ share of the crawler bots to create a fair, competitive environment.
Definition of crawl budget from Google
Let’s read a definition of crawl budget that Google published on the Google Search Central page:
“At the outset, we emphasize that the creep budget is not something to worry about. If new pages are indexed on the same day they are published, then a creep budget is not something web admins need to focus on. Similarly, if a site is less than a few thousand pages long, it will crawl most of the time effectively.
“Crawl budget is more important for larger sites or sites that automatically generate pages.”
What does creep budget mean for Google bots?
Creep budget for Google bots means:
“How much should we pay attention to example.com?” “Do we need to check and index the content of this site every day or not?”
To crawl our content, Google crawlers look at the timing of the content release, the title, and the nature of the content. The more attention you get, the more pages a site has the chance to crawl and be indexed.
Crawl Limit and Crawl Demand; Two important factors in determining the crawl budget of sites
The crawl budget that Google sets for sites to which hard-working crawlers are subject is based on two factors: Crawl Limit and Crawl Demand. Before we talk about how Google uses these two factors to determine its creep budget, let’s first define them:
- Crawl Limit; This factor tells Google how much our site server resources can accept.
- Crawl Demand; This factor also tells which of our pages is worth crawling multiple times.
Okay! Now let’s see how Google, by putting the results of these two factors together, determines the creep budget for our site.
Crawl Limit and the importance of servers and hosts in crawl budget
In the case of Crawl Limit, every time Google crawlers try to crawl a page, a request to access the site’s resources is sent to the server. If the number of these requests is too large and the server can not respond to all of them, the site will be down.
To find out what our site’s Crawl Limit is, Google looks at a few things:
- Is there a problem with our site server when Google requests?
- Does our site use shared hosting or dedicated hosting?
- Is our site large or small in terms of content and number of pages?
If you use a shared host, the site server is too crashed, and the site has more than 1000 pages, you will probably not get a good Crawl Limit score.
Crawl Demand and page content valuation factors
Regarding Crawl Demand, Google determines the value of crawling a page based on page type, popularity, and content freshness. According to this:
- Pages that are more likely to change content have a higher Crawl Demand. A fairly simple example of this is comparing the possibility of changing the content of the “Terms and Conditions” page on store sites with the “Product” page.
- A page whose content is updated at short intervals is more appealing to Google crawlers, so they should pay more attention.
- A page linked to internal pages and various sites is worth crawling more than other pages.
Explaining these two factors took a bit longer. Still, we wanted to know exactly what Google goes through to evaluate these two factors on different pages of our site and ultimately allocate a specific creep budget to our site.
How much does the creep budget affect our site SEO?
That’s a good question. You have probably experienced that you added new content (product page, article, blog) to the site a few days ago, and there is no news about its index. Sometimes it takes a few weeks, but we do not see any traces of Google crawlers on the new page!
We know that no change is out of sight of Google bots, so what has happened now that there is no news of our new content indexing?
The thread goes back to the crawl budget and smart crawlers
We already know that Google crawlers are busy, and Google has defined the creep budget so that bots know how many times they have to visit each site. So far, we’m sure Google’s bots know our creep budget. So only two modes are possible:
1. For unknown reasons, the indexing speed has slowed down for all sites
In this case, usually, all webmasters complain about the very slow indexing of pages, and this issue goes so far by word of mouth that almost all of us make sure that the problem is not from our site and goes back to Google’s programs.
2. We have wasted the site crawl budget completely unknowingly
We use the phrase unknowingly because we certainly would never have done it if we had known we were wasting a creepy budget (matter so important!) With our own hands. Usually, we get so caught up in Google crawls that we rarely get a chance to crawl and index new or valuable pages and leave the site in vain.
In the meantime, the first point that is damaged is the site SEO. Because insignificant pages of the site are seen, valuable pages that have a great potential to be indexed on the Google results page and attract organic traffic are left out of the caravan. It’s our fault, too, for our misconceptions about Google’s crawlers, which have prevented us from properly planning to do things that could optimize our site crawl budget.
Before moving on to the next section of this article, we recommend checking your site’s crawl budget status with the free Google Search Console tool. This is very easy. Go to the setting panel and click on “Crawl stats” to display a report similar to the image below.
5 Misconceptions About Site Crawl Budget and Google Crawler Performance That We Must Forget!
We agree that Google has told you not to worry about the site crawling budget, but that does not mean that if we have a problem with crawling and indexing the site pages, we can attribute all the problems to Google bots. Google crawlers are friends of our site and do their best to use our crawl budget to improve the site’s SEO. But sometimes, we inadvertently disrupt their operation.
Here are some common misconceptions about wasting site crawl:
1. Google bots notice duplicate content and duplicate pages of the site
Some sites have pages that are similar in content, headings, subheadings, tags, etc. Why do we think Google bots should realize that they do not need to crawl and index duplicate pages on our site? With this mistake, we can easily destroy the site crawl budget and say that Google bots should have recognized that we did not want all these pages to be crawled and indexed!
What should we do now?
The solution is to select a page for these pages as canonical so that the bots know which page we want to be indexed. To expand your knowledge about canonicalizing a page, we suggest you read the ” Canonical Tag ” article at the earliest opportunity.
2. Google crawlers do not crawl our low-quality content
Not! Not at all. In crawling a page, the quality or poor quality of the content does not matter to the bots. The problem is the creep budget or when the bots spend time checking that poor quality page while you could see a good page instead. If indexed, this low-quality content will not only benefit our site SEO but will also disappoint Google.
What is the solution?
Let’s eliminate this misconception and remove pages with poor quality content or redirect them to other quality and related content on Redirect 301 by emphasizing that they are our site-friendly crawlers. We suggest that you read the article “Redirect 301” before doing this.
3. Site speed has nothing to do with the creep budget and performance of Google bots
If you believe this, we must say that you are completely wrong. A site with a low loading speed gives Google bots a signal that the site’s servers can not respond well to your requests, so do not spend too much time on this site. As a result, Google’s bots come back longer, and the site crawler budget is easily wasted.
What should be done to solve this problem?
We must first check the site speed and Core Web Vitals factors. If we notice a problem, let’s go-to site speed optimization. Improving site speed speeds up page crawling and indexing and increases the site crawl budget. Therefore, we suggest you read the article on site speed optimization.
4. Google bots do not pay attention to product filter parameters
One of the measures taken to improve the user experience on store sites is to use product filter parameters; like the following:
https://www.example.com/hat/boyhat?color=red
This is a smart move to make it easier for users to search the site, but do not think that Google crawlers ignore these URLs. Bots crawl these URLs just like any other page, so as a result, part of the site crawl budget is spent on these pages without knowing it.
What’s the solution?
We have to put these pages in Navindex mode in the site’s robots.txt file to solve this problem. We can also add a “noindex” attribute to the links on these pages. By doing this, the robots will never go to these pages again.
5. The structure of the site linking does not affect the creep budget or how Google bots work
If you have such an idea, we must say that the internal links lead the bots to new pages and valuable content on our site. Links are like traffic lights that tell crawlers where to go and which pages to look at. These lovely crawlers attract pages more than any other page with good internal linking.
How to solve this problem?
The internal link-building structure of the site largely goes back to our SEO strategy, and it is not possible to prescribe a single version for everyone. But we suggest you link to your important pages in more internal pages.
In addition to what we have said, we make other mistakes that interfere with the performance of crawler bots. For example, there are a lot of broken links, orphan pages, and redirected pages on the site or non-indexed pages. The presence of these links and pages also confuses Google bots.
Is there a way to improve the site crawl budget?
The creep budget optimization can not be said with certainty because the best we can do to improve the crawl budget is to prevent it from being wasted. Therefore, according to Google, if you have an active site that is technically performing well or a small site with a small number of pages, there is no need to optimize the creep budget.
But if you own a large store with many pages (more than 1000 pages), it is better to focus more on optimizing the factors that Google uses to determine the crawl budget and the items that cause the crawl budget to be wasted.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do search engines charge crawl rates for sites?
For Google to deliver the best content to the user, it needs to rank the sites and display the best and most valuable to users. The tool for this ranking is crawling and indexing pages. Creep budgets help Google prioritize the number of crawls per site based on that site’s merits.
Why should we pay special attention to Crawl Budget?
Because if the creep budget is spent on useless pages or targets, our valuable pages will be out of sight of Google bots and will not be crawled and indexed. As a result, they receive no traffic, and the site’s SEO is damaged.
What is meant by creep budget optimization?
Creep budget optimization means that we take every step necessary to ensure that the site crawl budget is not wasted. Any crawl performed by Google bots on our site leads to the indexing and ranking of important and valuable pages of the site. We suggest that you read the article What is SEO Technical on this topic.
Concluding remarks
This article taught us what a crawl budget is, what role Google crawlers play in it, and how Google determines a site’s crawl budget. This is how we realized that our misconceptions and not taking a few simple steps could easily waste this valuable budget.
Now it’s your turn to share your valuable ideas and experiences with us. What experience do you have with your site crawl budget? Have you ever had a problem with a creep budget? Please share your experiences with us in the comments section. Maybe you can light the way for another SEO!