I’ve been comparing how quickly Google discovers new pages across two websites, with very different publishing patterns.
One is updated regularly with new events, listings and local content. The other is a business website where the pages change less often.
The difference in how quickly new pages are being found, raised an interesting question.
Why does Google seem to discover content faster on some websites compared to others?
Google does not crawl every website in the same way
Googlebot doesn’t visit every website on a fixed schedule.
Some websites change constantly. News sites, event websites and ecommerce stores may have new content every day.
Other websites may only change occasionally.
Google has to decide how often it’s worth returning to a site.
If Google regularly visits a website and keeps finding new or updated content, it may have more reason to come back again.
That could help explain why new pages on frequently updated websites are sometimes discovered much faster.
How often a website changes can matter
One of the websites I’ve been looking at is updated several times a week.
New pages added, existing pages are updated and new content is regularly linked to the site.
The other changes happen less.
Its main pages are stable and there’s less new content being added on a regular basis.
That difference matters because Google uses its crawling resources efficiently.
If a website rarely changes, there may be less reason to revisit it frequently.
If it changes often, Google may learn that there is more value in checking again.
Internal linking can help Google find new pages
Publishing a new page doesn’t automatically mean Google will find it quickly.
Google still needs a route to that page.
If a new page is linked from the homepage, a category page, another article or a relevant section of the site, Google has several opportunities to discover it.
This is one of the reasons internal linking is so important.
It helps users navigate a website, but it also helps search engines understand how pages are connected.
A new page that is linked well into the rest of the site, is easier to discover than one that is sitting on its own.
Sitemaps give Google another route
XML sitemaps also play a part.
A sitemap gives search engines a list of web pages/URLs that exist on a website and provide information about when pages were last updated.
It does not guarantee that Google will crawl or index every page immediately, but it gives Google another way to discover new content.
For websites that are updated regularly, keeping the sitemap accurate is particularly useful.
Does publishing more often mean faster indexing?
Not necessarily.
This is where it is easy to turn a useful SEO idea into bad advice.
Publishing more content to make a website look active is unlikely to achieve much.
There is little value in creating weak or repetitive articles because you think Google wants to see something new.
The content still needs to have a purpose.
A useful article, a new service page, an updated guide or a genuine piece of new information is very different from publishing content simply to increase the number of pages on a website.
Quality still matters.
There are other factors involved
Publishing frequency is only one possible explanation.
Google may also take into account things such as:
- the structure of the website
- how pages are internally linked
- whether the sitemap is working correctly
- the authority and history of the domain
- server performance
- duplicate or low-value pages
- how often existing content changes
- crawl errors
- whether Google thinks particular pages are worth crawling
So if one website is getting new pages discovered faster than another, it does not necessarily mean publishing frequency is the only reason.
It is something that needs to be checked against the data.
The useful part is testing it
Rather than making assumptions, I’m going to compare the crawl and indexing behaviour of the two websites more closely.
I want to look at things such as:
- how frequently Googlebot visits each site
- how quickly new URLs are discovered
- how quickly those URLs are indexed
- internal linking patterns
- sitemap activity
- crawl statistics in Google Search Console
The two websites have very different publishing patterns, which makes them an interesting comparison.
If the frequently updated site is genuinely being crawled more often, the data should help show that.
What this means for business websites
Most business websites do not need to publish something every day.
But leaving a website completely untouched for months at a time is not ideal either.
Regular, useful updates give businesses an opportunity to add new information, answer customer questions, build topical relevance and create stronger internal links.
That might mean publishing a useful article once or twice a month.
It could also mean improving an existing service page, adding a case study, updating outdated information or expanding a page that is already starting to appear in search.
The important thing is that the change has a reason.
SEO is not about constantly feeding Google new pages.
It is about making a website useful, understandable and easy to crawl.
And sometimes, simply looking at how Google behaves across different websites can tell you far more than another generic SEO checklist.