Google doesn't always crawl every page of your site immediately. Sometimes key pages may remain unknown for days or weeks. That lag can decelerate your SEO, particularly if you've recently made changes or created new content. That's where crawl budget optimization comes in. In this article, we're going to address what crawl budget is and how you can make sure that search engines focus on the most important pages.
What is the Google Crawl Budget?
The crawl budget is the number of pages a search engine bot, such as Googlebot, is allowed and able to crawl on your website within a given timeframe, typically per day. It directly affects how efficiently your site gets indexed and ranks in search results.
The number of pages Google crawls on your site each day can change a little, but it usually stays about the same over time. Some websites may only have a few pages crawled daily, as few as 6, while others might have 5,000 crawled per day.
Your crawl budget primarily depends on the size of your website, its health (for example, whether it has any crawl errors), and the number of high-quality backlinks pointing to it. While you can't control everything, there are several important things you can improve to get the most out of your crawl budget — and we’ll go over those next.
How Does a Crawler Work?
Here’s how it works in steps:
1. Starts with a list:
Googlebot has a list of website pages (URLs) it already knows about — like the homepage of your site or pages in your sitemap.
2. Reads instructions:
Before reading everything, it checks if it’s allowed to (from a file called robots.txt on your site).
3. Visits each page:
It opens each page like a person reading a webpage — downloading the content (text, images, code).
4. Look for links:
It finds all the links on that page, like when you click links to go to other pages, and adds those new pages to its to-do list.
5. Renders the page (like a browser):
If your page uses JavaScript (like a fancy image gallery), Googlebot uses a tool called Chromium (like Google Chrome) to fully load and see it properly.
6. Stores the content (indexing):
After reading the page, it saves the important content in Google’s “index” (like saving a page in a giant library catalog). This helps show your page in search results.
7. Repeats the process:
It keeps going — visiting new pages, reading them, saving them, and finding even more links.
How Does Google Determine Crawl Budget?
1. Crawl Capacity Limit
This refers to the number of requests Googlebot can make to your server without affecting its performance. If your server is fast and stable, Googlebot will crawl more pages. If it’s slow or returns errors, the crawl rate decreases.
Example:
Suppose your site can accommodate just 100 visitors simultaneously. If Googlebot attempts to crawl 1,000 pages rapidly and your server crashes or becomes sluggish, Google will lower the number of pages it attempts to crawl in the future. But if your server performs well, Google will feel “safe” crawling more.
2. Crawl Demand
This is how much Google wants to crawl your pages. It depends on how popular your pages are (e.g., backlinks, user visits) and how often your content changes. Pages with more external signals or frequent updates will be crawled more often.
Example:
Say you run an online store:
- Your homepage and best-selling product pages get a lot of traffic and backlinks. These pages have high crawl demand, so Google visits them often.
- On the other hand, an old product page that’s rarely updated and receives no traffic has low crawl demand. Google may crawl it only occasionally.
When Is Crawl Budget an Issue?
Crawl budget becomes a problem when your site has more pages than Google can reasonably crawl in a short period. If important updates or new pages take weeks (or even months) to get discovered and indexed, you're likely facing a crawl budget issue.
Follow these steps to find out if your site has a crawl budget issue:
Determine the number of pages on your site. Use your XML sitemap to estimate the total number of URLs.
1. Go to Google Search Console
Navigate to: Settings → Crawl stats
2. Check your "Average crawled per day"
3. Calculate the ratio
Divide the number of total pages by the average pages crawled per day.
- If the result is over 10, it’s a sign you should optimize your crawl budget.
- If it’s under 3, you’re probably fine.
Example
Let’s say your site has 25,000 pages, and Google crawls 2,500 pages/day:
25,000 ÷ 2,500 = 10 days
It may take 10 days to crawl the full site — not bad, but deeper pages may still face delays.
Now, imagine you improve your site’s performance and boost the crawl rate to 12,500 pages/day:
25,000 ÷ 12,500 = 2 days
Now the entire site can be crawled in just 2 days — much better.
9 Tips to Optimize or Increase Your Crawl Budget
Here are some practical and effective tips to optimize or increase your crawl budget
1. Fix Crawl Errors
Crawl errors waste valuable crawl budget and slow down indexing. These errors usually include broken pages (404), server errors (5xx), or access-denied responses.
To identify and fix crawl errors:
- Go to Google Search Console
- Navigate to Pages under Indexing
- Check the "Not Indexed" tab for errors
2. Improve Your Site Speed
Googlebot favors fast-loading websites. A slow site means fewer pages crawled per visit, which can delay indexing.
How to optimize speed:
- Compress large images (use WebP format)
- Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
- Use browser caching and lazy loading
- Host on a fast, reliable server or use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Use tools like PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse to identify performance issues and suggestions.
3. Update and Clean Up Your Sitemap
Updating your sitemap regularly will cause Google to crawl your site more effectively. Ensure that it only contains indexable, high-quality pages that are intended to be displayed in search results.
Remove any noindexed, redirect, or error URLs to not waste crawl budget. An efficient sitemap ensures that search engines crawl the most important content on your website first.
Steps to update your sitemap:
- Generate a clean sitemap using tools like Yoast, Screaming Frog, or XML-sitemaps.com
- Go to Google Search Console > Sitemaps
- Remove old sitemaps, if any
- Submit your updated sitemap URL (e.g., example.com/sitemap.xml)
4. Use Robots.txt Wisely
The robots.txt file helps control what Googlebot can and can’t access. Prevent crawling of low-value pages (like login or cart pages) to save budget.
Example rules:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /cart
5. Avoid Duplicate Content
Duplicate or thin content can confuse crawlers and dilute crawl efficiency. Google may waste time on similar pages instead of unique ones.
Tips to reduce duplication:
- Use canonical tags to tell Google the preferred version of a page
- Avoid multiple URLs with the same content (e.g., session IDs, filters)
- Consolidate similar blog posts or product pages
6. Optimize Internal Linking
Thoughtful internal linking helps search engines discover and prioritize the right pages on your website. When done correctly, it not only boosts crawl efficiency but also supports better rankings by passing link equity to key content.
Think of your site as a map—your homepage is the starting point, and internal links act as roads that guide both users and search engines to deeper, relevant pages.
Ensure your most important pages are just a few clicks away from major sections or hub pages. Avoid linking to broken or redirected URLs, as these disrupt the journey and waste crawling resources.
7. Regularly Update Important Pages
Fresh content signals to Google that a page is active and worth crawling again. It can improve both crawl rate and ranking potential.
How to refresh content:
- Add updated stats, new sections, or visuals
- Rewrite outdated parts and improve structure
- Update the publish date (only if content is substantially revised)
Even small changes can encourage Google to revisit those pages more often.
8. Remove Unnecessary Redirects
Too many redirects can slow down your website and make it harder for search engines to crawl your pages efficiently. This wastes your crawl budget and may hurt your SEO.
It’s even worse when redirect chains are involved — where one redirect leads to another, and then another, before finally reaching the right page. These extra steps confuse crawlers and delay page loading.
For example:
yourwebsite.com/blog → yourwebsite.com/blog-home → yourwebsite.com/blog/latest
In this case, instead of taking visitors straight to the final page (/blog/latest), they’re routed through multiple unnecessary hops. This delays loading and makes it harder for Googlebot to efficiently crawl your content.
9. Boost Backlinks to Important Pages
Pages with more external links tend to be crawled more often. Quality backlinks signal to Google that a page is popular and worth revisiting.
Crawl budget is essential for efficient site indexing and ranking. By fixing crawl errors, optimizing site speed, and prioritizing important pages, you can improve crawl efficiency and enhance visibility. To ensure optimal performance, choose a reliable web hosting provider that offers maximum server speed and stability.