Is Google’s Crawler Always on Vacation?

Greetings! : )

I had some time to reflect while looking at the Search Console. With how much time and energy we spend on AI search engine optimization and updates, getting a simple tier-2 link indexed feels near impossible.

I understand we are all trying our different indexing tools and methods, but let’s face reality, the immediate-days-of-push-and-result semantics are long past.

From what I can see, everyone is in agreement on the point that Google is getting lazier. We are all putting effort into creating effective systems and setups, but we are getting way too delayed results.

Post your current methods and tactics for indexing on this thread. It would be great to see what is actually bringing about a measurable change this week.

Probably just more strict and working on much tighter budget.

I think the issue isn't that google is lazy. It's that crawl budget is being allocated much more selectively than before. These days I get better indexing rates by building links on pages that already receive regular crawls rather than trying to force index brand new tier 2 properties. Internal links from frequently crawled pages still seem to move the needle more than most indexing tools.

seo mastermind said:

tbh i don’t think the crawler is “lazy”, it just feels slower because they’ve tightened how they prioritize what gets indexed

Click to expand...

That's a great observation.

I should not have said "lazy." It is a more "focused prioritization." Google has elevated their standards on what receives data center resources; as a result, basic indexing strategies no longer suffice.

When they restrict crawl budgets this way, it causes a perception that only very high-authority content is instantly crawled.

What have you been doing to work around this? Are you giving stronger entity signals or just more time to the links?

tiiberius said:

Probably just more strict and working on much tighter budget.

Click to expand...

You're right. Their management of resources is inefficient. I agree with the choice to implement a stricter budget. Our only option is to adjust to the circumstances.

Have you noticed any particular type of pages that are beginning to get indexed? Or is the process equally slow for you at this time?

DojaCat said:

I think the issue isn't that google is lazy. It's that crawl budget is being allocated much more selectively than before. These days I get better indexing rates by building links on pages that already receive regular crawls rather than trying to force index brand new tier 2 properties. Internal links from frequently crawled pages still seem to move the needle more than most indexing tools.

Click to expand...

That's just about the best advice you could give. It really is about working with Google and using its natural traffic flow as opposed to creating a way to try and beat the algorithm.

You're completely right. Building off of pages that have a high frequency of crawling is just about the best move you could make. Trying to use third-party indexers isn't worth the time. It's obvious that the same tier-2 automated blasts are losing their effectiveness. The best way to get Google's attention is to use strategic internal linking.

So, do you either make a map of the high-frequency pages or do you have a way to track the crawl log and find the best possible locations?

yeah, crawl logs are probably the cleanest way to pick pages for this. if a page already gets hit often, adding/refreshing internal links there usually works better than trying to force index random tier 2s.

Same here. I removed the noindex tag from one of my sites back in mid-May, and Googlebot hasn't bothered to recrawl it since. I’ve already requested indexing 3 times through both GSC and the GSC API. If it was a quality issue and they refused to index it, I’d take it. But in this case, it literally looks like the crawler is just getting lazy.

I do not think google is lazy but it was just more selective. These days i focus on quality sources, strong site structure and making sure new pages are linked from already indexed content. That tends to work more consistently than chasing quick indexing tricks.

Feels less like Google is lazy and more like they are selective. I get faster indexing when links are placed on pages that already get crawled often. Fresh pages and random tier 2 links can sit for weeks now even with indexing tools.

yeah indexing in general's gotten slower across the board, not just you, tier 2 links suffer the most from it