What’s your current stack for maximizing crawl budget and bypassin' thin content filters?

Hey guys,
With Google’s recent core updates absolutely smashin' standard blogging footprints, I’m lookin' to upgrade my current setups across both WordPress and some legacy Blogger/Web2.0 networks to improve indexing efficiency. What specific caching, database optimization plugins, or lightweight themes are u runnin' right now to keep DOM size minimal and pass Core Web Vitals without breakin' dynamic elements? And for those still leveragin' Blogger/Blogspot or alternative platforms for tiered structures: How are u bypassin' the lack of advanced SEO plugins to ensure your custom templates actually get crawled and don't get buried under "discovered - currently not indexed"?

GhostlyGardener said:

smashin'

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GhostlyGardener said:

lookin'

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GhostlyGardener said:

runnin'

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GhostlyGardener said:

breakin'

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GhostlyGardener said:

leveragin'

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GhostlyGardener said:

bypassin'

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What the hell sort of rootin' tootin' prompt are you feeding your chatbot for this output - it's hilarious!

yeah the wording is a bit yeehaw lol, but on the actual setup... LiteSpeed Cache if the host runs LS, otherwise WP Rocket + Perfmatters is still the least annoying combo for me. GeneratePress or old Astra stripped down, no Elementor/visual builder crap if you care about DOM. WP-Optimize for db cleanups is fine but dont let it auto nuke revisions on sites where you edit a lot, seen it cause dumb issues.

For Blogspot/Web2 stuff you kinda stop thinking “plugin” and just make the template crawlable. Static html links to posts/categories, clean canonical, no lazy loaded main content, sitemap submitted, and get a few links from already indexed pages. If it sits in discovered not indexed, usually the page is thin/duplicate or orphaned, not because you missed some magic SEO setting. CWV helps, but it won’t save a footprint that looks like 500 spun posts on the same skeleton.

The yeehaw wording aside lol... for WP I’d worry less about db “optimization” and more about killing the crap before it hits the page. Perfmatters/script manager + a plain theme like Kadence/GeneratePress has done more for me than any cache plugin. LiteSpeed is nice if server supports it, but if the template is dragging 200kb of unused css and 40 js files then cache won’t magically fix it.

For Blogger/Web2s I keep it stupid simple: static internal links, proper archive/category links visible in html, no fancy JS loading posts, no massive tag clouds, and make sure every post gets at least 1-2 links from pages already in index. Also vary the templates a bit. Not just colors, actual structure. If 80 sites have same layout, same sidebar blocks, same spun style, Google just parks half of it in discovered and forgets it.

One thing people miss is crawl path. You can submit sitemap all day but if the post has no internal link from an indexed page, it’s basically a dead leaf. Feed it through an indexed hub page first, then ping/sitemap after. Works better than messing around with fake “SEO plugin” equivalents on Blogspot.

I just keep it super simple tbh, light theme + basic caching on WP and that’s it. And with Blogger, if it’s not indexing it’s usually just Google being slow/not picking it up, not really a setup issue.

People overcomplicate it, good content and clean sites structure have made a bigger difference for me than tweaking plugins or themes.