SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, receives a lot of attention in the marketing world, but fewer people have heard of or pay attention to Technical SEO. Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a site infrastructure so that search engines like Google and Bing can effectively crawl and index site pages.
Technical SEO, together with Keyword SEO, and on-page SEO (like backlinks) all play a part in ranking sites for search queries on engines like Google and Bing.
And if your website has thousands of product and category pages, it's not enough to simply have great content—you need to ensure search engines can actually *find* and index it.
Crawl budget is a behind-the-scenes technical SEO factor that can significantly impact how well your pages rank, especially for large eCommerce sites. Understanding and optimizing your crawl budget can result in more of your pages getting indexed, better visibility in search engines (including in large language models like ChatGPT), and more traffic and conversions—without spending more on ads.
Let's take an eCommerce site that sells ten thousand products. There's probably an eCommerce homepage, category pages, product pages for each item, a "My Account" page, maybe some content pages too like blogs, About Us, FAQs, etc - you get the picture. The one eCommerce site is made up of likely tens of thousands of URLs. Each with content, images, meta tags, backlinks, redirects, and more.
Crawl budget is the behind-the-scenes ranking that Google will give your site for determining how much time to spend reading and indexing all your site pages, and Google makes that determination by considering a number of factors. Google determines your site's crawl budget based on server health, traffic and popularity, site speed load times, and original content. When a crawl bot visits your site, it first checks your XML sitemap and then begins navigating your pages. A higher crawl budget means Google is willing to spend more time leafing through your site, "reading" and indexing your content. This time spend results in a higher chance of ranking - aka a higher Organic SEO rating.
A low crawl budget, means Google isn't willing to spend its bot-energy on your site and therefore your site likely won't show up as a search result in a listing page in Google. This concept now extends beyond search engines to AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which use similar crawling techniques to understand and rank web content in their models.
In the world of Organic SEO, a high Crawl Budget can mean the difference between being visible or invisible in search results, and that can be the difference between increased traffic and revenue.
👉 Questions about your crawl budget? Let’s talk.
The Briteskies Digital Marketing team recently performed a Technical SEO audit for one of our clients.
The client, a distributor to both B2B and B2C customers, was having trouble seeing a return on paid Google Ads and was looking for new ways to drive traffic and revenue to their eCommerce site.
We started by reviewing their XML Sitemap submission to Google. Utilizing tools in Adobe Commerce as well as Google Search Console, we found that while the eCommerce store had about 9,000 valid URLS, Google was indexing well over 40,000! This meant that the Crawl Budget, while high, was being spent on pages not related to products or education.
After a deeper dive, we determined that the the majority of Crawl budget and time was being spent on on-site search queries filled with foreign characters, as well as on Account Log In pages- essentially, it was being wasted.
By updating the Robots.txt file and No Index / No Follow rules, we were able to better direct the Crawl bots to the product and content pages. This allowed Google to get a better idea of the site, the products it sells, and matching products to search queries on Google.
After resolving the over-indexation and refining which pages were to be prioritized, the site experienced a 79.5% increase in search impressions, a 61.9% boost in organic clicks, and over $786,000 in SEO-attributed revenue growth in just three months.
With improved product visibility and a smarter, stronger crawl budget, key products and categories began to rank more competitively - all without increasing ad spend. With enhanced visibility the site was able to maintain conversion rates, even despite a traffic surge, proving that higher quality traffic was coming to the site and that visitors were converting into customers.
Schedule a technical SEO audit with our team today and see how optimized crawl budget can drive real results for your site.
If your site structure or Technical SEO setup wastes crawl budget, you risk having critical product or category pages missed or ignored. Here’s why that matters:
Briteskies, an Adobe Commerce Solutions Partner with 15+ years of experience, offers comprehensive eCommerce services. We specialize in Adobe Commerce (Magento) implementations, integrations, and customizations for B2B and B2C businesses. Our expertise extends to digital marketing strategies, SEO optimization, analytics, and technical audits, helping businesses streamline operations, enhance their online presence, and drive revenue growth through tailored eCommerce solutions.
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