Google Clarifies Using Noindex & 404 Status Codes For Crawl Budget Optimization

Dec 5, 2022 - 7:21 am 1 by

Google Gecko Crawl Budget

On Friday, Lizzi Sassman from Google updated the crawl budget management help document with two more topics. Specifically, Google added two new myths to the crawl budget documentation.

(1) Google added that using noindex isn't a good way to control crawl budget but it can be a method to indirectly free up crawl budget in the long run, Google said.

(2) Also that pages that serve 4xx status codes (except 429) do not waste crawl budget, Google wrote.

Here is where Google added them, right at the bottom:

Any URL that is crawled affects crawl budget, and Google has to crawl the page in order to find the noindex rule.

However, noindex is there to help you keep things out of the index. If you want to ensure that those pages don't end up in Google's index, continue using noindex and don't worry about crawl budget. It's also important to note that if you remove URLs from Google's index with noindex or otherwise, Googlebot can focus on other URLs on your site, which means noindex can indirectly free up some crawl budget for your site in the long run.

Pages that serve 4xx HTTP status codes (except 429) don't waste crawl budget. Google attempted to crawl the page, but received a status code and no other content.

click for full size

Forum discussion at Mastodon.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Blog Administration

Programming Note: Rosh Hashanah 5785 - Happy & Healthy Jewish New Year

Oct 2, 2024 - 3:01 pm
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: October 2, 2024

Oct 2, 2024 - 10:00 am
Bing Search

Bing Generative Search Experience Rolling Out

Oct 2, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Warning On JavaScript-Generated Product Markup

Oct 2, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Updates

October 2024 Google Webmaster Report

Oct 2, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

Google Search Location Carousel Moves Map On Scroll

Oct 2, 2024 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: December 2022 Google Webmaster Report