Google has added a single line to its Googlebot documentation to say that when Googlebot crawls from within the US, it crawls using the Pacific timezone.
Google added this line of text, "When crawling from IP addresses in the US, the timezone of Googlebot is Pacific Time."
This is not new and you all probably already know this but Google just added it to its documentation over here.
Yes, Googlebot can crawl from outside the US but primarily, Google crawls from the US, which is why blocking US users is a bad idea.
I am just covering this to document the text change in Google's help document.
Forum discussion at X.
With that Google also updated article structured data docs to clarify:
This was added to the structured data docs:
— Pedro Dias (@pedrodias) October 18, 2023
"We recommend that you provide timezone information; otherwise, we will default to the timezone used by Googlebot." -- Google's default timezone is PT. pic.twitter.com/1Co3uc9K3X
Pro tip: timezone matters even if you don't specify a time.
— I am John (@JohnMu) October 18, 2023
