Google New Update Specifies 15MB Page Size for Indexing

Google New Update Specifies 15MB Page Size for Indexing

Page Performance and Page SIze have always been primary KPIs while monitoring and optimizing the technical aspects of SEO.

Recently, Google released a document in Search Central, about this and specified the following about Page size limits.

15mb page size indexing

“Namely, we’ve documented that Googlebot only ever “sees” the first 15 megabytes (MB) when fetching certain file types.“

However, the biggest question in the SEO community is revolving around whether the page size limit includes images, videos and other resources as well.

What does the Size Limit Correspond to?

Here’s what John Muller had to say about it. 

“It’s specific to the HTML file itself like it’s written.Embedded resources/content pulled in with IMG tags is not a part of the HTML file.”

Rest assured there is no cause for concern. 15 MB is a reasonably large file size the recommended file size for HTML pages is not more than 100KB. 

Whenever we open a new website, our browser first downloads the HTML page as it is. Based on the HTML contents it makes additional requests for other resources. So rest assured all Images and videos that are referenced by the img and video tags are indexed separately.

For example: <img src=”https://example.com/images/puppy.jpg” alt=”cute puppy looking very disappointed” />

So if you are being a good SEO and following all of its best practices, you shouldn’t be having a problem. There are a few pages on the internet of that size, and you may never encounter one unless you want to fit an entire book within a single page.

What are its SEO Implications?

This update however does not change the Status Quo of the SEO Best Practices. The best practice still dictates the recommended page size to be 100KB. The 15 MB threshold was present previously, only that it was never officially announced. The recent article changes that.

Read full article > https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/06/googlebot-15mb

However, if your page is media-heavy and contains a lot of resources, it probably would be wise to perform certain tasks.

The following steps might help in Indexing a page near to or exceeding 15MB including resources:

  • The HTML code must be structured in a way that all SEO Relevant content stays on the upper side of the page.
  • The images and videos should be compressed and not directly related to the Web Pages.

Although putting a limit to the page size may sound worrisome, however, 15MB is a reasonably high size for a page.

If you Ever have Pages with more size than 15MB you probably would have other underlying issues. 

How to Measure Page SIze and perform Technical Analysis

There are many tools that can measure page size. Any one of them can be referred to while finding page size.

Tools to measure Page Size

  • Google Page Speed Insights.
  • GTMetrix
  • Screaming Frog(Best option)

You can also check the Page Size using Chrome Developer Tools:

However, analyzing technical issues with your website might require a full-scale crawl. 

Tools to Perform Technical Analysis

  • SERanking
  • SEOOptimer
  • SEMRush
  • Ahrefs
  • SEOSiteCheckUp