Monitoring Crawl Stats and Googlebot Behavior with Google Search Console

Google Search Console's Crawl Stats report is a powerful tool to monitor how Googlebot crawls your website by providing detailed data on crawl activity, performance, and site availability.

Key features and metrics include:

• Total crawl requests: Shows how many times Googlebot has requested pages from your site. Frequent crawling often indicates Google values your site, but a drop may signal issues or low-value pages.

• Total download size: Indicates the amount of data Googlebot downloads during crawls, including HTML, images, CSS, and scripts. This helps assess the resource load Googlebot experiences.

• Average response time: Measures how quickly your server responds to Googlebot’s requests in milliseconds. Faster response times suggest better site health and can positively impact SEO.

• Grouped crawl data: Breaks down crawl requests by response code (e.g., 200, 404), file type, crawl purpose, and Googlebot type, helping diagnose specific issues or understand crawl patterns.

• Host status: Provides information on your site’s availability to Google over the past 90 days, including status for multiple hosts under a domain property, which helps identify hosting or server problems.

• URL examples: Shows sample URLs for each crawl request type, allowing you to pinpoint where crawl activity is concentrated or problematic.

Using this report, you can:

• Track crawl frequency and detect unusual changes in crawl behaviour.

• Identify slow server responses or availability issues affecting crawl efficiency.

• Understand which file types and URLs Googlebot prioritizes.

• Diagnose crawl errors or bottlenecks by response codes and host status.

• Optimize your site structure and server performance to improve crawlability and indexing.

The Crawl Stats report is accessible within Google Search Console under the Settings menu and provides both high-level overviews and detailed insights to help you maintain and improve your website’s crawl health.