Crawl budget is a key SEO concept, especially for large websites with millions of pages or medium-sized websites that update frequently. Optimizing crawl budget can ensure search engines efficiently crawl and index your most valuable pages.
For instance, sites like eBay may have millions of pages, while Gamespot.com and similar platforms with user-generated reviews and ratings may have tens of thousands of frequently updated pages.
With numerous SEO responsibilities, crawl budget optimization often gets overlooked. However, it can be crucial to ensuring your site’s long-term success in search results.
In this article, we’ll explore:
- How to improve your crawl budget.
- Recent changes to the crawl budget concept over the last few years.
Note: If your site has only a few hundred pages and is experiencing indexing issues, it’s likely not related to crawl budget. Consider reading our article on common causes of indexing problems.
What Is Crawl Budget?
Crawl budget refers to the number of pages that search engine crawlers, like Googlebot, visit within a specific timeframe. Various factors influence this, including a balance between Googlebot’s desire to crawl your domain and its effort to avoid overloading your server.
Crawl budget optimization involves steps to improve the efficiency and frequency at which search engine bots visit your website pages.
Why Is Crawl Budget Optimization Important?
Crawling is the foundation of search visibility. If your pages aren’t crawled, they can’t be indexed, meaning they won’t appear in search results. Frequent crawling ensures that updates and new content on your site are indexed more quickly, allowing your SEO efforts to take effect faster.
Google’s index holds billions of pages, and the cost of crawling continues to rise. In response, search engines aim to reduce costs by limiting the crawl rate of certain URLs. This is also part of Google’s broader strategy to improve sustainability and reduce its carbon footprint.
For websites with a large number of pages, managing the crawl budget becomes crucial. By optimizing crawl budget, you help Google prioritize essential pages, allowing your website to be crawled without wasting resources.
1.1.Disallow Crawling of Action URLs in Robots.txt
It may come as a surprise, but Google has clarified that simply disallowing URLs in your robots.txt file won’t directly reduce your crawl budget. So why is it important? By blocking unimportant URLs, you can guide Google to focus its crawl efforts on the more valuable pages of your site.
For example, if your website has internal search parameters like /?q=google
, Googlebot might still crawl these URLs if they are linked from somewhere. Similarly, in e-commerce sites, facet filters (e.g., /?color=red&size=s
) can create countless unique URL combinations that Google might attempt to crawl, even though they don’t offer unique content.
These URLs typically serve user experience by filtering existing data, but they don’t add much value for search engines. Allowing Google to crawl these pages wastes crawl budget and detracts from your site’s overall crawlability. By blocking such URLs via robots.txt, you help Google prioritize more meaningful pages.
Here’s how to block internal search or URLs containing query strings:
Disallow: *?*s=*
Disallow: *?*color=*
Disallow: *?*size=*
Each rule blocks URLs with specific query parameters, regardless of other parameters present in the URL.
*
(asterisk) matches any sequence of characters.?
indicates the start of a query string.=*
matches the=
sign and any subsequent characters.
This strategy reduces redundant crawling and ensures Google doesn’t waste resources on filtering-related URLs. However, take care: this method blocks URLs containing the indicated characters anywhere in the string, which could unintentionally disallow important URLs. For instance, if you block *?s=*
, URLs like /?pages=2
could also be blocked, as it matches ?s=
.
To avoid this, refine your rules by using:
Disallow: *?s=*
Disallow: *&s=*
This approach disallows exact query parameters while preventing unwanted blocks.You can also apply these rules to specific cases. For example, if your site has wishlist functionality with URLs like ?add_to_wishlist=1
, block these using:
Disallow: /?add_to_wishlist=*
This simple yet essential step, recommended by Google, improves crawl efficiency and saves resources.
Additional Benefits of Blocking Action URLs
Blocking such URLs via robots.txt also helps reduce server load. URLs with dynamic parameters often trigger server requests instead of being served from cache, putting unnecessary strain on your resources. By disallowing them, you ensure that Googlebot avoids these pages, which ultimately preserves server bandwidth.

Lastly, keep in mind that noindex meta tags should not be used for blocking purposes. Googlebot still has to fetch the page to see the noindex
directive, wasting crawl budget in the process. Use robots.txt for blocking instead to efficiently manage your crawl budget.
However, sometimes disallowed URLs might still be crawled and indexed by search engines. This may seem strange, but it isn’t generally cause for alarm. It usually means that other websites link to those URLs.

Google confirmed that the crawling activity will drop over time in these cases.

1.2.Disallow Unimportant Resource URLs in Robots.txt
In addition to blocking action URLs, you should consider disallowing resource files, such as JavaScript files, that don’t contribute to the essential layout or content rendering of your website. This helps conserve crawl budget by preventing Google from crawling unnecessary resources.
For example, if you have JavaScript files that manage non-critical functions, like opening images in pop-up windows when users click, you can block these in robots.txt to prevent Google from wasting resources on them. Here’s how you can disallow such a file:
Disallow: /assets/js/popup.js
However, it’s important not to block resources that are integral to content rendering. If your content is dynamically loaded through JavaScript, Googlebot needs access to those files to index the content properly.
Another example is REST API endpoints for non-essential functions like form submissions. If you have URLs like /rest-api/form-submissions/
, blocking these can be beneficial since they are not related to content rendering:
Disallow: /rest-api/form-submissions/
Be cautious, though—if your site uses a headless CMS or relies on REST APIs to load content dynamically, make sure not to block the endpoints that deliver this content.
In summary, review any resources that aren’t essential for rendering or displaying content, and block them to optimize crawl efficiency without affecting user experience or content indexing.
2.Watch Out for Redirect Chains
Redirect chains occur when one URL redirects to another, which in turn redirects to another, and so on. If these chains grow too long, search engine crawlers may abandon the chain before reaching the final destination.
For instance, URL 1 redirects to URL 2, which redirects to URL 3, and so forth. In extreme cases, these chains can form infinite loops, where URLs continuously redirect to each other, preventing the crawler from ever reaching the intended page.
Avoiding redirect chains is a simple yet vital step in maintaining website health. Ideally, you should aim to have no redirect chains across your entire domain. However, for large websites, this can be challenging. Redirects (301 or 302) are often necessary, and external backlinks beyond your control may contribute to these chains.
While one or two redirects might not severely impact your site, long chains and loops can cause significant problems.
To identify and resolve redirect chains, you can use SEO tools like Screaming Frog, Lumar, or Oncrawl. These tools will help you locate chains that need to be fixed. The best approach is to eliminate any unnecessary steps between the initial and final URLs. For example, if a chain redirects through seven different pages, update the first URL to point directly to the final page, bypassing the intermediate steps.
Another effective method to minimize redirect chains is to update internal links within your CMS, ensuring they point directly to the final destination. Some CMS platforms, like WordPress, offer plugins to manage redirects, but if you’re using a different CMS, you might need a custom solution or assistance from your development team.
3.Use Server-Side Rendering (HTML) Whenever Possible
Google’s crawler can now handle JavaScript thanks to its use of the latest version of Chrome. This means that content rendered by JavaScript can still be indexed. However, it’s important to consider the additional computational resources involved.
When Googlebot crawls a page, it first processes the HTML and then executes any JavaScript to render the content. This requires more resources and time. Google is actively working to reduce these costs, so adding unnecessary computational steps (like client-side rendering) can negatively impact crawl efficiency.
To avoid this, use server-side rendering (HTML) whenever possible. By serving pre-rendered HTML pages, you ensure that crawlers can easily access your content without needing to process additional JavaScript.
Sticking to HTML when possible not only helps reduce computational costs but also improves your website’s crawlability, enhancing your overall SEO performance.
4.Improve Page Speed
As previously mentioned, Googlebot crawls and renders pages that include JavaScript, which means the fewer resources it needs to render a webpage, the more efficiently it can crawl your site. The key factor that influences this is how well-optimized your website’s speed is.
Google said:
Google’s crawling is limited by bandwidth, time, and availability of Googlebot instances. If your server responds to requests quicker, we might be able to crawl more pages on your site.
Implementing server-side rendering (SSR) is a great first step toward improving page speed, as it reduces the load on the client-side and delivers content faster. However, you’ll also need to ensure that your website’s Core Web Vitals are fully optimized. These metrics—such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)—are essential for both user experience and crawl efficiency.
Among these metrics, server response time is critical. A fast response time helps crawlers access and process your pages more quickly, which can directly impact how often and how effectively your site is crawled. By focusing on reducing server delays and improving overall performance, you not only enhance user experience but also allow Google to crawl more of your content within a given timeframe.
5.Ensure Internal URLs Are Consistent
Google crawls every unique URL on your website, treating each one as a separate page. That’s why it’s crucial to ensure consistency in how your URLs are structured across your site.
For instance, if your site uses the ‘www’ version (e.g., www.example.com
), ensure all internal links—especially navigation links—point to the canonical version, which includes the ‘www’ prefix. The same applies if you don’t use ‘www’; make sure all internal links are consistent with your preferred version.
Another common oversight is inconsistent use of trailing slashes. If your URLs include a trailing slash (e.g., https://www.example.com/sample-page/
), ensure that all internal links reflect this format. Otherwise, redirects from https://www.example.com/sample-page
to https://www.example.com/sample-page/
could lead to unnecessary crawls and wasted crawl budget.
Additionally, avoid broken internal links and soft 404 pages, as these can consume your crawl budget while also negatively impacting user experience.
To detect and fix these issues, it’s a good idea to conduct regular website audits. Tools like WebSite Auditor, Screaming Frog, Lumar, Oncrawl, and SE Ranking are excellent for identifying inconsistencies and optimizing your website’s internal linking structure.
6. Update Your Sitemap
Maintaining an up-to-date XML sitemap is a simple yet powerful way to improve your website’s crawl efficiency. A well-optimized sitemap allows search engine bots to better understand the structure of your site and the relationships between internal links.
Ensure your sitemap includes only canonical URLs, which helps avoid confusion for crawlers and ensures they are indexing the correct pages. Additionally, regularly check that your sitemap aligns with the latest version of your robots.txt file to prevent any discrepancies between what is allowed for crawling and what is listed in the sitemap.
Lastly, make sure that your sitemap loads quickly, as a slow-loading sitemap can hinder efficient crawling and indexing of your pages. Keeping it updated and optimized is a win-win for both search engines and your website’s SEO performance.
7.Implement 304 Status Code
When crawling a URL, Googlebot sends a date via the “If-Modified-Since” header, which is additional information about the last time it crawled the given URL.
If your webpage hasn’t changed since then (specified in “If-Modified-Since“), you may return the “304 Not Modified” status code with no response body. This tells search engines that webpage content didn’t change, and Googlebot can use the version from the last visit it has on the file.

Imagine how many server resources you can save while helping Googlebot save resources when you have millions of webpages. Quite big, isn’t it?
However, there is a caveat when implementing 304 status code, pointed out by Gary Illyes.

So be cautious. Server errors serving empty pages with a 200 status can cause crawlers to stop recrawling, leading to long-lasting indexing issues.
8.Hreflang Tags Are Vital
In order to analyze your localized pages, crawlers employ hreflang tags. You should be telling Google about localized versions of your pages as clearly as possible.
First off, use the <link rel="alternate" hreflang="lang_code" href="url_of_page" />
in your page’s header. Where “lang_code” is a code for a supported language.
You should use the <loc> element for any given URL. That way, you can point to the localized versions of a page.
9.Monitoring and Maintenance
Check your server logs and Google Search Console’s Crawl Stats report to monitor crawl anomalies and identify potential problems.
If you notice periodic crawl spikes of 404 pages, in 99% of cases, it is caused by infinite crawl spaces, which we have discussed above, or indicates other problems your website may be experiencing.

Often, you may want to combine server log information with Search Console data to identify the root cause.
Summary
So, if you were wondering whether crawl budget optimization is still important for your website, the answer is clearly yes.
Crawl budget is, was, and probably will be an important thing to keep in mind for every SEO professional.
Hopefully, these tips will help you optimize your crawl budget and improve your SEO performance – but remember, getting your pages crawled doesn’t mean they will be indexed.