Google analyst shares internal crawl, indexing timelines

Image credit: Abondance

Google analyst Gary Illyes publicly shared the company’s internal timelines for URL discovery, indexing, and recovery at Search Central Live Europe in Barcelona.

The rare disclosure provided webmasters and search engine optimization professionals with benchmarks for understanding how long Google typically takes to process website changes and respond to updates.

New URL discovery generally takes approximately 20 hours, while the recrawling of a previously known URL typically occurs within 30 days, Illyes said.

Full page indexing usually requires about one hour and 30 minutes, though some cases, often linked to quality issues, can extend to months or even result in no indexing at all, according to Illyes.

Site migrations, a complex process for websites, typically range from one to three months. More intricate migrations can take six months or exceed a year for completion, he explained.

Recovery following a Google core update generally spans three to six months. In the slowest instances, full recovery might not occur until the subsequent core update, Illyes noted.

Changes to website titles and snippets, which appear in search results, usually become visible within one to two days. Search Console removal requests are processed more quickly, typically within about two hours, he said.

Illyes emphasized that these timelines represent benchmarks rather than strict deadlines. He added that the various search processes are interconnected, meaning delays in one area can accumulate and affect subsequent stages.

John Campbell of ROAST highlighted the significance of the revelations, noting that Google rarely shares such specific internal operational details, according to Search Engine Journal. Cherry Sireetorn Prommawin and Matt G. Southern also reported on the event.

Estela Franco from Abondance was also present at the event where Illyes delivered his presentation.

Source: Abondance