True or False? When you make a change to a page, Google immediately crawls it.
- True
- False
Explanation:
The correct answer is: False. Google does not immediately crawl a page when changes are made to it. Crawling, indexing, and updating search results are processes that take time and are influenced by various factors. When changes are made to a webpage, Google’s crawler, known as Googlebot, needs to revisit the page to discover and process those changes. However, the frequency and timing of crawling depend on multiple factors, including the page’s importance, its crawl budget, the frequency of content updates, and the website’s overall crawl rate. Google prioritizes crawling based on the perceived significance and freshness of the content, as well as the website’s overall authority and trustworthiness. Therefore, while Google strives to keep its index up-to-date, it does not guarantee immediate crawling and indexing of every page on the web. Changes made to a page may take varying amounts of time to be discovered and reflected in search results, ranging from minutes to hours or even days, depending on these factors. Therefore, it is essential for webmasters to be patient and proactive in ensuring that their content is crawled and indexed efficiently by following best practices such as submitting sitemaps, using internal linking, and leveraging tools like Google Search Console to monitor crawling and indexing status.
Once changes are made to a page, there’s a waiting period. Google and other search engines operate on their own timelines and will crawl updated or new content based on their schedules, not immediately after alterations are implemented.
Source: HubSpot Lesson: SEO Reporting