Earlier this year, Google updated its “crawling and indexing topics” section. The biggest change? Webpages will only be crawled up to 2MB of HTML, down from 15MB. While the company’s Googlebot––its website crawler––can still fetch up to 15MB, it’ll stop indexing once it reaches 2MB.
Learn more about the new update below, and if your pages are too “big.”
What Does Google’s New Update Mean for Your Website?
All files––including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript––are now limited to 2MB. Once GoogleBot crawls more than 2MB, it’ll stop processing your page’s content. If you’ve included keywords, internal links, or a schema markup towards the end of a heavy piece of content, GoogleBot won’t see it.
How Would I Know if My Page is Too Big for Google?
Good news: it probably isn’t. In a study from Seobility, the company analyzed over 44 million pages, and found that less than 1% (0.82%) of the pages surpassed 2MB. At a closer glance, more than 84% of pages were over 50KB; 69% over 100KB; and 40.45% over 250KB. Though, low numbers or not, if you’re not careful, you could still be part of the 0.82%.
What Should I Do if My Page is Too Big for Google?
- Make your files smaller: You could get rid of extra code, HTML, comments, and “white spaces.” If you’re using a website builder program, you could switch to a basic layout, as well as remove any extra content add-ons.
- Fix your content structure: Does your content need to be “heavy?” Probably not. Consider making your content’s structure short and simple.
- Try to aim for lower than 2MB: While Google indexes up to 2MB, it’s best to keep your files under this number, in case you need to add something after the fact.
- Know your website: Be sure to regularly analyze your files, as certain factors (new plug-ins, updates) can increase their size overtime.
Need More Help With Your Website? Contact Boston Web Marketing, a Leading SEO Company, Today!
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