When Crawling Backfires: How "Googlebot Overload" Hits Site’s Rankings
12 June 2025 02:24 AM
We all are using Google as our permanent search engine. Many of us even use it for our businesses and it has always been a welcoming platform for all sorts of businesses in the world. However, in recent months, some online business personalities have claimed that Google’s recent Site Revisit Behaviour has not been at all hospitable.
A recent incident has stirred the SEO community, where a publisher reported a massive drop in Google search visibility which is possibly linked to what felt like a DDoS-level crawl by Googlebot. Despite implementing 410 status codes for millions of non-existent URLs, Googlebot continued its persistent crawl.
This real-world case underscores the importance of robust Technical SEO strategies, accurate implementation of NoIndex pages, and a nuanced understanding of how Google Ranking Updates can respond to crawling behaviour. If you have also been through a problem like this, you should definitely learn your lessons from this case. Read this article and learn all about how to keep your website safe in today’s world.
Googlebot’s Revisit Behaviour: A Blessing or a Burden?
Google’s John Mueller confirmed what many SEO professionals already know: Googlebot will keep checking missing pages, sometimes for a long time. This behaviour is meant to benefit webmasters who may have mistakenly removed content, giving them a chance to recover rankings if the pages are restored.
However, in this scenario, the publisher experienced over 5.4 million requests in 30 days for URLs that had been explicitly removed. One single URL received 2.4 million hits despite returning a 410 (Gone) response. The situation began when Next.js JSON payloads unintentionally exposed over 11 million non-existent URLs, leading to an aggressive crawl that overwhelmed the server and analytics logs.
Understanding the Power of the 410 Status Code
The difference between a 404 and a 410 may seem minor, but it's crucial in Technical SEO. A Google Ranking Updates that the page is unavailable, without specifying permanence. In contrast, a ‘410 Gone’ response tells Google and other crawlers that the page has been permanently removed and should no longer be requested or indexed.
Despite using 410s properly, the publisher saw no decrease in crawl frequency. This raises concerns about the crawl budget and its potential impact on important, indexable pages. The publisher also noted a direct drop in rankings during this crawling frenzy, sparking fears about a connection between Googlebot’s activity and Google Ranking Updates.
Can Robots.txt Save the Day? Maybe—With Caution
During the interaction with media, Mueller also agreed that disallowing crawling is acceptable if the traffic is disruptive. However, he offered a word of warning: if those URLs are referenced in JavaScript or JSON payloads critical to rendering content, blocking them might break page functionality or prevent indexing entirely. Client-side rendering adds an extra layer of risk to such decisions.
Mueller advised simulating these blocks in Chrome DevTools and monitoring Search Console Soft 404s before fully committing to robots.txt restrictions.
Final Thoughts: Don’t Just Look at the Surface
Everyone in the world depends on the internet nowadays and there are many instances where the internet can screw over a very well performing website because of an error. But, in some cases, what seems to be the problem is actually a small part of the problem. Similarly, Mueller highlighted, an error on the publisher’s side originally exposed the URLs, which snowballed into broader visibility issues.
This situation is a powerful reminder: always look beyond the surface. In Technical SEO, the smallest oversight can lead to major issues. By carefully diagnosing the root cause and monitoring the effects of your fixes, you can regain control of your site's performance amidst even the most aggressive Google Ranking Updates.
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