Google’s Top Crawling Challenges For 2025

02/03/26
Source: Search Engine Roundtable by barry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz). Read the original article

TL;DR Summary of Google’s Top Crawling Challenges in 2025

Google’s main crawling issues in 2025 include faceted navigation, action parameters, and irrelevant URL parameters. These challenges cause server overloads and inefficient crawling due to massive URL variations. Addressing these issues is crucial for improving site performance and avoiding crawler loops that waste resources.

Optimixed’s Overview: Understanding Google’s Critical Crawling Obstacles and Their Impact on Website Performance

Key Crawling Issues Identified by Google

In a recent podcast, Google representatives Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt detailed the primary crawling difficulties Googlebot faces in 2025. These challenges mostly stem from complex URL structures and parameters that multiply the number of URLs Googlebot must process, often without clear value distinctions.

Breakdown of Major Crawling Challenges

  • Faceted Navigation (50%): Common in e-commerce sites, this allows filtering by multiple criteria, creating an enormous number of unique URLs. Googlebot attempts to crawl all variations, which can overwhelm servers and degrade user experience.
  • Action Parameters (25%): Parameters like ?add_to_cart=true trigger actions without significantly changing page content. These inflate URL counts unnecessarily and are often generated by CMS plugins.
  • Irrelevant Parameters (10%): Tracking parameters such as UTM tags or session IDs confuse crawlers because it’s unclear if they affect page content, leading to excessive crawling to verify relevance.
  • WordPress Plugins or Widgets (5%): Some plugins add tracking or dynamic content parameters that complicate crawling, especially given WordPress’s open-source ecosystem.
  • Other Technical Anomalies (2%): Rare issues like double-encoded URLs cause errors that Googlebot still attempts to crawl, wasting resources.

Implications and Recommendations

Googlebot’s need to explore large URL spaces without adequate signals about URL value can lead to inefficient crawling and server strain. Website owners should:

  • Implement proper URL parameter handling and canonicalization.
  • Limit faceted navigation URL generation or use robots.txt and meta directives to manage crawl behavior.
  • Review CMS plugins and remove or configure those that add non-essential parameters.
  • Monitor server logs for crawler activity spikes and adjust settings accordingly.

By addressing these challenges, sites can improve crawl efficiency, reduce server load, and enhance overall SEO performance.