According to Google, temporal anomalies impact Googlebot crawling
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According to Google, temporal anomalies impact Googlebot crawling

Google’s John Mueller answered a question on Reddit about Googlebot crawling and snapshot completeness. The person who asked the question received an answer that touched on edge cases and crawl timing anomalies.

A Googlebot “screenshot” refers to a representation of what a web page looks like to Googlebot.

What a web page looks like depends on how it is rendered after executing JavaScript, loading CSS, and downloading the necessary images.

Google Search Console’s URL inspection tool gives an idea of ​​what a webpage looks like to Google. This tool helps publishers and SEOs understand how Google “sees” a website.

Question about knowing what Googlebot “sees”

The questioner was talking about Googlebot screenshots. Apparently they meant the rendered page as Googlebot itself sees it.

This is the question the Redditor asked:

“Is the Googlebot screenshot a complete picture of what Google can see?”

Later they clarified the questions with the following answers:

“How do I know what Google sees in my article? …I want to know what Googlebot sees on my website.”

Is Googlebot screenshot a complete image?

Back to the original question of whether the “The Googlebot screenshot shows a complete picture of what Google can see” Google’s John Mueller gave the following response.

“For the most part, yes. However, there are some edge cases and temporal anomalies. Tell us more about what you want to check.”

Mueller’s response confirms that the Googlebot screenshot represents what Google sees when it crawls a page.

Temporal anomalies in Googlebot screenshot

The questioner referred to a Googlebot screenshot as what Googlebot “sees” when it visits a webpage. That also appears to be the context of Mueller’s response.

Mueller’s response referred to temporal anomalies that could be an indication of temporary problems at the time the webpage was crawled, which could have affected which resources were downloaded and consequently could have affected how the webpage was used for that moment what Googlebot looked like.

The Google Search Console URL Inspection tool also provides a snapshot that shows a live preview of how a webpage will appear to Google. This is a good way to check that everything is rendered by Google the way it should look.

Read the discussion on Reddit:

Is the Googlebot screenshot a complete picture of what Google can see?

Featured image from Shutterstock/Sammby