The term crawl budget refers to the quantity of web pages a search engine’s crawler, such as GoogleBot, is capable of and willing to scan on a website over a certain period. This concept is essential for website owners and SEO professionals because it influences how often and thoroughly a site’s content is indexed by search engines. The crawl budget is determined by two main factors:
- The crawl rate limit, which ensures the crawler doesn’t overwhelm your website’s server, potentially causing issues with your site’s performance.
- The popularity and authority of your pages, which can increase the likelihood of them being crawled more frequently as they are deemed more valuable to users.
Optimizing your website’s crawl budget is crucial for ensuring that your most important content is indexed and updated regularly, thereby improving your site’s visibility and performance in search engine results.