Google’s Latest Insight: More Content ≠ Better Indexing
So here’s the scoop from a recent chat on Google’s Search Off The Record podcast, as noted by Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable. Google’s very own Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman brought Dave Smart into the conversation to dig into the crawling process. The takeaway? The quality of your website influences how Google crawls it. But, as John Mueller humorously pointed out on LinkedIn, trying to bombard Google with content to get crawled more often is like trying to make your kids love kale by force-feeding them. It just doesn’t work.
What does it mean?
It’s simple: Google and Bing both agree that bombarding their crawlers with content won’t make your website any more favorable to them. In the words of Bing’s Fabrice Canel, adopting a ‘Less is More’ approach not only saves crawling resources but often leads to higher quality clicks. It’s about focusing on crafting great content, not just any content.
Is there anything you should do about it?
Absolutely. This insight solidifies what many SEO agency professionals have advocated for years: quality over quantity. Rather than pushing out content for the sake of it, focus on creating valuable, engaging content that serves your audience. Google’s crawling mechanism is designed to prioritize content that is deemed important and of high quality, which means your effort should lean towards making your existing content as good as it can be. This might also be the right time to look into how your site is structured and whether it’s optimized for both user experience and crawling efficiency—a domain where a website development agency can significantly boost your efforts.
In a nutshell, while it’s critical to keep your site updated and fresh, the emphasis should be on the relevance and quality of your content rather than the sheer volume. The analogy given by John Mueller couldn’t be clearer: More doesn’t mean better; better means better.
For a deeper dive into the discussion and more insights, make sure to read the full article by Barry Schwartz on Search Engine Roundtable.
