SEARCHENGINES
Google Clarifies 15MB Googlebot Limit

The other day, I covered how Google added a line to its Google documentation that Googlebot can crawl the first 15MB of content in an HTML file or supported text-based file, after that, it stops crawling. Then I was a bit shocked to see a large number of SEOs begin to panic.
For some reason, SEOs felt 15MB of raw HTML per page is not enough. 15MB is a massive amount of HTML on a URL by URL basis. It does not include downloading videos, images, etc, it is just the HTML source code. Again, it is a huge limit and none of this was new, it was simply just added to the documentation but has been in place at Google for a long time.
So Google’s Gary Illyes did his thing to clarify and posted a nicely titled blog post on the Google blog named Googlebot and the 15 MB thing. In short, Gary explains “You, dear reader, are unlikely to be the owner of one, since the median size of a HTML file is about 500 times smaller: 30 kilobytes (kB). However, if you are the owner of an HTML page that’s over 15 MB, perhaps you could at least move some inline scripts and CSS dust to external files, pretty please.” He digs in more for those who are concerned, so go read it.
Then John Mueller of Google does his Twitter thread version:
This is not a new thing, it’s just newly written down. If you haven’t seen issues from this so far, you’ll continue not to see them. While I trust that you can make HTML files that are larger, it’s a *lot of work* and almost nobody does that.
— 🐝 johnmu.csv (personal) weighs more than 15MB 🐝 (@JohnMu) June 28, 2022
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Ulysses by James Joyce, also of course The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde,
— 🐝 johnmu.csv (personal) weighs more than 15MB 🐝 (@JohnMu) June 28, 2022
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, and on top (or bottom?) of all that:
War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy.Now, add the content you want to rank for. pic.twitter.com/2dP6otIV9I
— 🐝 johnmu.csv (personal) weighs more than 15MB 🐝 (@JohnMu) June 28, 2022
I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s a lot of HTML. I could never get past the first few chapters of Pride & Prejudice anyway, and you want me to read all of this before getting to the actually important part? I admire Googlebot’s patience.
— 🐝 johnmu.csv (personal) weighs more than 15MB 🐝 (@JohnMu) June 28, 2022
You can check the size of any page on the internet by going there, and looking at the developer tools in your browser. Or you can use a cool tool like https://t.co/CLRJkz732J which gives you the full size in a nice UI.
— 🐝 johnmu.csv (personal) weighs more than 15MB 🐝 (@JohnMu) June 28, 2022
If you’re a prolific writer, my recommendation would be to split books into chapters, and publish them individually. Please don’t publish 16 books on a single HTML page and expect people to find your best prose on the bottom. Thank you.
— 🐝 johnmu.csv (personal) weighs more than 15MB 🐝 (@JohnMu) June 28, 2022
Are you still concerned about this 15MB limit?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2023

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts this coming Thursday night, December 7th. Google has added its Hanukkah decorations to the Google Search results interface to celebrate. Google does this every year and I expect to see the same rollout in the coming weeks for Christmas and Kawanzaa but for now, since Chanukah is in the coming days, we have the Hanukkah decorations live at Google Search.
Here is a screenshot of the Chanukah decorations as they look like on the mobile search results.
You can see it yourself by searching on Google for [chanukah], [hanukkah], but not yet [חֲנוּכָּה] or other spelling variations yet but it should soon. It looks better on mobile than it does on desktop results.
To see the past, the 2023 decorations, 2021 decorations, 2020 Chanukah decorations, 2019 Google holiday decorations, the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and so on.
Happy Chanukah, everyone!
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

Google seems to be testing a Google Pay Accepted label or icon in the Google search results. This label has the super G logo followed by the words “Pay accepted” words next to search result snippets that support Google Pay and notate such in their structured data.
This was first spotted by Khushal Bherwani who shared some screenshots of this on X – here is one:
Here are some more screenshots:
Here is test and without test window for same query. pic.twitter.com/n9cYWBOsro
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) October 20, 2023
Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:
In continuation from the test from October, Google is now testing out a new Google Pay label associated with organic results. Last month, Google was testing Pay Accepted text, with this month changing it to Pay encrypted checkout. More details: https://t.co/MvFNoPmMDR pic.twitter.com/WDVVc4RbTO
— SERPs Up 🌊 (@SERPalerts) November 30, 2023
I tried to replicate this but I came up short.
This is not the first time Google had similar icons like this in its search results.
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

Typically, Google Discover shows content that is less than a day old, but it can show content that is weeks, months, or even years old. However, typically, Google will show more recent content in the Discover feed. Well, that may have changed with the new Google follow feature.
Glenn Gabe, who is a very active Google Discover user, noticed that since the Follow feature rolled out, he has been seeing content that is weeks and months old way more often than before the follow feature rolled out. Glenn wrote on X that “this could also be playing a role. i.e. Google isn’t providing as much recent content, but instead, focusing on providing targeted content based on the topics you are following.”
It makes sense that if you follow a specific topic and if Google Discover only shows the most authoritative types of content, it might be hard for Google to find new content on that topic. So it does make sense that Google may show older content more often for that specific topic you follow.
Here are screenshots Glenn shared:
Have you noticed this in your Discover feed?
Forum discussion at X.
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