Rendering Service Can Affect a Site Crawl Budget ?

According to John Mueller, a Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, intensive use of WRS (Web Rendering Service) can reduce a site’s crawl budget. WRS allows Googlebot to render pages like a browser and index everything in the same way as users. On the other hand, crawl budget is the system used by Google to limit the number of server requests during crawling to avoid problems.

How Google Determines Crawl Budget?

Google’s system automatically determines the maximum number of requests a server can handle in a given period. When the server starts to slow down or return server errors, they reduce the crawl budget available to their crawlers. To render pages, Google services require access to embedded content like JavaScript files, CSS files, images, videos, and server responses from APIs used on the pages. They use caching to minimize the number of requests needed to render a page.

How to Improve Crawl Budget and User Experience for Large Sites?

While most sites don’t need to worry about crawl budget, reducing the number of embedded resources required to render a page can help with crawling and improve user experience for large websites. Mueller suggests reducing the number of embedded resources to help with crawling and enhance the user experience.

In conclusion, intensive use of WRS can reduce a site’s crawl budget, but it’s not something that most sites should worry about. However, for large websites, reducing the number of embedded resources required to render a page can help with crawling and improve user experience.

FAQ

What is a rendering service?

A rendering service is a technology that allows web pages to be viewed in a browser, as they would appear if loaded in a web browser. It helps ensure that all of a page’s content and features are rendered correctly.

How can using a rendering service affect a site crawl budget?

Using a rendering service can help to ensure that the web crawler correctly identifies all content on the page. This can help prevent the crawler from misinterpreting content and/or missing content during the crawl process. Additionally, rendering services can help to reduce the total size of the page, which can help reduce the amount of resources required to crawl the page, thus conserving crawl budget.

What are the potential drawbacks of using a rendering service?

Rendering services can be resource intensive, which can add significant cost to a project. Additionally, the process of rendering a page can introduce potential errors or slowdowns which can negatively impact the performance of the website.

What kinds of web pages typically require a rendering service?

Sites that contain a lot of dynamic content or complex JavaScript, such as single page applications, React sites, and sites using Ajax, are often best served by using a rendering service.

Are there any alternatives to using a rendering service?

Yes, there are some alternatives to using a rendering service. For example, static snapshots of content can be created and served to a web crawler, which can help ensure that all content is correctly interpreted without the added cost and resource overhead of a rendering service.