Google's Crawling Priorities: Insights From Analyst Gary Illyes

Google's goal, as stated by Google Analyst Gary Illyes, is to improve crawling efficiency by reducing the amount of crawling and bytes on wire. This means Google is working on crawling fewer pages and reducing data consumption to make the web more sustainable and practical.

Google's crawling priorities are determined by a variety of factors, which are dynamic in nature. These include the quality of content, its relevance, and the search demand for certain topics. If the search demand for a topic decreases, Google may crawl fewer pages related to that topic. The key is to convince the search engine that a website's content is worth fetching.

To increase the amount Google crawls a website, one must focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that aligns with current search demand. This involves prioritizing quality, keeping content current, monitoring search demand trends, and implementing technical best practices. By doing so, you can convince Google's scheduler that your content is worth fetching.

A fixed 'crawl budget' is considered a myth because Google's crawling decisions are not limited to a set number of pages per day. Instead, these decisions are dynamic and driven by the quality of content. Google's Search Relations team has explained that the concept of a crawl budget oversimplifies how Google prioritizes crawling, which is based on various factors rather than a fixed limit.

To adapt to Google's crawling changes, you can take several actionable steps:

• Prioritize quality: Create content that is high-quality, relevant, and engaging.
• Keep content current: Regularly update your content to ensure it remains valuable.
• Monitor search demand trends: Adapt your content strategy to current trends and topics.
• Implement technical best practices: Maintain a clean and well-structured website architecture with a robust internal linking strategy.