The Most Ignored SEO Metric in GSC (But It Reveals Google’s Real Trust Level)

[KoD-]

Everyone tracks average position because it tells you what Google shows you.

But almost no one tracks crawl stats the metric that tells you what Google actually believes about your site.

Here’s the truth:

• If your crawl rate drops → your relevance is slipping.
  Google is quietly reducing its attention.
  
  
• If your crawl rate spikes → your updates are getting validated.
  Google is investing more crawl budget because it trusts your changes.

Stop tracking rankings. Start tracking trust.

If you want the real health score of your site, check it here:

GSC → Settings → Crawl Stats

Most people ignore it. That’s why it’s a competitive advantage.

Anyone here tracking their crawl rate spikes lately seeing trust gains or trust drops?

 

[tazarbm]

while I do agree with the main point of your post (crawl budget = trust), I don't agree with this part...

Stop tracking rankings.

how can you not track rankings, that's one of the most important (and morally rewarding) parts of SEO? You should have left this part out

 

[KoD-]

how can you not track rankings, that's one of the most important (and morally rewarding) parts of SEO? You should have left this part out

Totally agree rankings are important and we should track them. My point was that rankings are a lagging metric, while crawl stats are a leading metric.
If we monitor both together, we can catch issues before rankings drop.