NEWS

Can Being Crawled by Googlebot Desktop Cause Indexing Delay? via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Published

1 year ago

August 13, 2021

Google’s John Mueller answered a question about whether it matters to indexing speed if Googlebot mobile or Googlebot desktop crawls a page. The person asking the question was worried about slow indexing and wanted to know if getting crawled by Googlebot desktop (instead of Googlebot mobile) was the reason.

Googlebot Desktop and Mobile

Google has a multitude of website crawlers that follow from link to link discovering new web pages to crawl and index.

If you look at your traffic logs you might see:

Googlebot Desktop
Googlebot Smartphone
Googlebot Image
Mediapartners-Google (Mobile AdSense)
FeedFetcher-Google
Google-Read-Aloud
AdsBot-Google
Googlebot-Video

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Those are just a few of the Google-related Google crawlers that can visit a website.

The question John Mueller answered was primarily concerned with Googlebot Desktop and Googlebot Smartphone and what impact on indexing the desktop version might have.

This is the question:

“Our website’s posts are being indexed after one week. The site is old and mobile-friendly.
When I submit URLs in Inspection Tools, it shows it’s crawled by Google smartphone.
But in the About section, the indexing crawler is shown as Googlebot Desktop.
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Does this mean the Smartphone bot is crawling the URL and the Desktop bot is indexing this URL?
Is this the reason behind the indexing delay?”

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John Mueller’s answer:

“This would not be a reason for any kind of indexing issues.
I don’t know offhand why you might see this mix of desktop and mobile crawlers there.
It might just be that the Search Console is essentially saying well, by default, the Inspection Tool will just use the mobile Googlebot.
In practice, we always crawl with both of these crawlers.
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It’s just a matter of how much we crawl and index with any of these crawlers.
So, usually you’ll see something like 80% is coming from mobile Googlebot and 20% maybe from desktop Googlebot.
And that kind of ratio, that is essentially normal and doesn’t mean that things are slower than anything else.”

Multiple Versions of Googlebot Crawl Websites

Google’s Googlebot support page states that both versions of Googlebot visit web pages.

According to Google’s official documentation:

“Your website will probably be crawled by both Googlebot Desktop and Googlebot Smartphone.
You can identify the subtype of Googlebot by looking at the user agent string in the request.”

According to Mueller and Google it’s totally normal to be crawled by both and there’s no indexing impact related to getting crawled by Googlebot Desktop.

Citation

Google’s Googlebot Page
Googlebot

Google’s Overview of Google Crawlers (User Agents)

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Does Predominantly Googlebot Desktop Crawl Cause Indexing Delay?

Watch the video at the 34:28 minute mark

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NEWS

Google December Product Reviews Update Affects More Than English Language Sites? via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Published

9 months ago

December 28, 2021

Roger Montti

Google’s Product Reviews update was announced to be rolling out to the English language. No mention was made as to if or when it would roll out to other languages. Mueller answered a question as to whether it is rolling out to other languages.

Google December 2021 Product Reviews Update

On December 1, 2021, Google announced on Twitter that a Product Review update would be rolling out that would focus on English language web pages.

Our December 2021 product reviews update is now rolling out for English-language pages. It will take about three weeks to complete. We have also extended our advice for product review creators: https://t.co/N4rjJWoaqE
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 1, 2021

The focus of the update was for improving the quality of reviews shown in Google search, specifically targeting review sites.

A Googler tweeted a description of the kinds of sites that would be targeted for demotion in the search rankings:

“Mainly relevant to sites that post articles reviewing products.
Think of sites like “best TVs under $200″.com.
Goal is to improve the quality and usefulness of reviews we show users.”

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Google also published a blog post with more guidance on the product review update that introduced two new best practices that Google’s algorithm would be looking for.

The first best practice was a requirement of evidence that a product was actually handled and reviewed.

The second best practice was to provide links to more than one place that a user could purchase the product.

The Twitter announcement stated that it was rolling out to English language websites. The blog post did not mention what languages it was rolling out to nor did the blog post specify that the product review update was limited to the English language.

Google’s Mueller Thinking About Product Reviews Update

Screenshot of Google's John Mueller trying to recall if December Product Review Update affects more than the English language

Product Review Update Targets More Languages?

The person asking the question was rightly under the impression that the product review update only affected English language search results.

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But he asserted that he was seeing search volatility in the German language that appears to be related to Google’s December 2021 Product Review Update.

This is his question:

“I was seeing some movements in German search as well.
So I was wondering if there could also be an effect on websites in other languages by this product reviews update… because we had lots of movement and volatility in the last weeks.
…My question is, is it possible that the product reviews update affects other sites as well?”

John Mueller answered:

“I don’t know… like other languages?
My assumption was this was global and and across all languages.
But I don’t know what we announced in the blog post specifically.
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But usually we try to push the engineering team to make a decision on that so that we can document it properly in the blog post.
I don’t know if that happened with the product reviews update. I don’t recall the complete blog post.
But it’s… from my point of view it seems like something that we could be doing in multiple languages and wouldn’t be tied to English.
And even if it were English initially, it feels like something that is relevant across the board, and we should try to find ways to roll that out to other languages over time as well.
So I’m not particularly surprised that you see changes in Germany.
But I also don’t know what we actually announced with regards to the locations and languages that are involved.”

Does Product Reviews Update Affect More Languages?

While the tweeted announcement specified that the product reviews update was limited to the English language the official blog post did not mention any such limitations.

Google’s John Mueller offered his opinion that the product reviews update is something that Google could do in multiple languages.

One must wonder if the tweet was meant to communicate that the update was rolling out first in English and subsequently to other languages.

It’s unclear if the product reviews update was rolled out globally to more languages. Hopefully Google will clarify this soon.