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Knowledge base v2.13.0 · Community edition · data through 2 October 2026

Topic · How Search works

How long Google's processes take

Google shared estimates from internal analysis of how long its processes take, as information rather than targets: discovering a new URL takes about 20 hours on average and recrawling a known URL about 30 days, while indexing a document takes about 1.5 hours on average (probably lowered, Google said, by the many news sites). A robots.txt change is picked up in about 24 hours, as Google's docs say, and a sitemap is processed in about 24 hours. After a 404 or noindex a page usually leaves the index within one to three weeks, a canonical change also takes one to three weeks, a site move one to three months and a Search Console removal about 2 hours; snippet and title changes take 1-2 days, removing a manual action 1-2 weeks, and a core update reaches a site in 2 to 4 weeks. Most of these figures are not in Google's documentation, and each step waits for the one before it: a change cannot be processed until the page is recrawled. The robots.txt figure matches Day 1's documented 24-hour cache, and Google's help gives similar ranges elsewhere: a temporary removal usually takes up to a day and lasts about six months, and title link changes a few days to a few weeks. Other estimates said at the event: images are indexed in hours to two days, structured data changes are picked up within hours to two weeks, and a spam update reaches sites within 1-2 days of its rollout. On Day 1 Gary Illyes advised news sites to track their own figure, the time from publishing a URL to Googlebot's first crawl, and to investigate only a rising trend, adding that for fresh stories something like two hours is probably not great (said at the event).

Based on D3-C598, D3-C599, D3-C600, D3-C604, D3-C634, D3-C637, D3-C613, D3-C610, D3-C639, D3-C640, D3-C643, D3-C651, D3-C654, D3-C657, D3-C659, D3-C661, D3-C665, D1-C085, D3-C673, D3-C675, D3-C648, D3-C646, D3-C663, D1-C467, D1-C543

38 claims · raised in 2 sessions · said or shown on Day 1 and Day 3

Open in Reef mapOpen in Graph

Things in this topic 18

6 more things

Counts are claims that name the thing. All things

What to do

  • To hide a URL urgently, use the Removals tool in Search Console and also return a 404 or noindex.
  • When changes must be picked up faster, work on discovery and recrawling (internal links, sitemaps); indexing itself is quick.

Day 1: Crawling 2

Said on stage 2

StageNot in docsD1-C467

To check that new content is crawled fast enough, Gary Illyes advised measuring the time between publishing a URL and Googlebot's first crawl of it: ideally it stays flat or falls, and only a rising trend calls for investigation.

Speaker Gary IllyesIn Day 1, 16:35 · Q&AEvidence transcript

Things

Used byrequirement DEV-MON-11

  • Answers D1-C465 Day 1: An audience member asked how a large news site can tell whether crawl budget is limiting how fast new…
  • Extended by D1-C543 Day 1: Gary Illyes said that if the time from publishing to Googlebot's first crawl starts rising, how much it rises…
StageNot in docsD1-C543

Gary Illyes said that if the time from publishing to Googlebot's first crawl starts rising, how much it rises matters: for the crawling of fresh stories, something like two hours is probably not great (a smaller example figure is unclear in the recording).

Speaker Gary IllyesIn Day 1, 16:35 · Q&AEvidence transcript

Things

Used byrequirement DEV-MON-11

  • Extends D1-C467 Day 1: To check that new content is crawled fast enough, Gary Illyes advised measuring the time between publishing a…

Day 3: Serving: Ranking, Search Console, and Performance 36

Shown on screen 21

SlideD3-C599

Each of Google's processing-time charts marks a minimum, a typical value and an end point on a scale from seconds to one year, with a dotted line for corner cases, and carries the footnote that the times are estimations based on internal analysis.

“Times expressed on the diagram are estimations based on internal analysis.”

Wording checked against the slide or recording

Speaker Gary IllyesIn Day 3, 15:45 · How long does it take to..?Evidence 4 slide photos

SlideConfirmed by docsD3-C613

Google estimated that a robots.txt update is picked up in about 24 hours, with a minimum of seconds and an end point of 25 hours on the slide.

Speaker Gary IllyesIn Day 3, 15:45 · How long does it take to..?Evidence slide photo, transcript

Things

Used byrequirements DEV-MON-10, DEV-SRV-05

  • Extends D1-C085 Day 1: Google generally caches robots.txt for up to 24 hours and reads only the first 500 KiB of the file.
SlideConsistent with docsD3-C663

Google estimated that a spam update affects sites within 1-2 days of the rollout, 1-2 weeks for continuous processing (said on stage as 2 weeks on average) and months for batch refreshes.

Speaker Gary IllyesIn Day 3, 15:45 · How long does it take to..?Evidence slide photo, transcript

Things
  • Extends D3-C286 Day 3: When spammers find loopholes that Google's systems miss, Google releases spam updates that change its systems…

Said on stage 12

What Google's documentation says 1

DocsSourceD3-C673

Google's Removals tool help says a temporary removal request usually takes up to a day to process and lasts only about six months, so the content must also be removed permanently, for example with a 404 or 410, a noindex or a password.

Publisher Google Search Console HelpAnnotates Day 3, 15:45 · How long does it take to..?

Things

Used byrequirement DEV-IDX-13

Analysis by the author 2

Across days and sessions 7

  1. Stage D1-C543 Day 1 · Q&A

    Gary Illyes said that if the time from publishing to Googlebot's first crawl starts rising, how much it rises matters: for the crawling of fresh stories, something like two hours is probably not great (a smaller example figure is unclear in the recording).

    extends
    Stage D1-C467 Day 1 · Q&A

    To check that new content is crawled fast enough, Gary Illyes advised measuring the time between publishing a URL and Googlebot's first crawl of it: ideally it stays flat or falls, and only a rising trend calls for investigation.

  2. Stage D3-C606 Day 3 · How long does it take to..?

    For news sites in particular, Google said the refresh of a known URL can literally take seconds (the reading 'news sites' is likely but not certain).

    extends
    Stage D1-C466 Day 1 · Q&A

    Gary Illyes said news sites rarely need to worry about crawl budget, because Google crawls them aggressively given their constant flow of new content and new URLs.

  3. Slide D3-C610 Day 3 · How long does it take to..?

    Google estimated that processing a sitemap takes about 24 hours on average, with a minimum of minutes.

    extends
    Stage D1-C337 Day 1 · How crawling works

    An XML sitemap, a format from around 2005, gives Google, other search engines and potentially AI systems a list of the URLs a site wants crawled; Google called it nothing fancy but said it still uses sitemaps.

  4. Slide D3-C611 Day 3 · How long does it take to..?

    If a sitemap is useful to Google and the site is of high quality, Google tries to refetch the sitemap within 14 days at most.

    extends
    Stage D1-C337 Day 1 · How crawling works

    An XML sitemap, a format from around 2005, gives Google, other search engines and potentially AI systems a list of the URLs a site wants crawled; Google called it nothing fancy but said it still uses sitemaps.

  5. Slide D3-C613 Day 3 · How long does it take to..?

    Google estimated that a robots.txt update is picked up in about 24 hours, with a minimum of seconds and an end point of 25 hours on the slide.

    extends
    Docs D1-C085 Day 1 · How Google interprets robots.txt

    Google generally caches robots.txt for up to 24 hours and reads only the first 500 KiB of the file.

  6. Slide D3-C617 Day 3 · How long does it take to..?

    Google's crawl chart puts a crawl capacity update at seconds when backing off, typically 4 hours or 1-2 weeks, and 1-3 weeks in recovery.

    extends
    Stage D1-C493 Day 1 · Q&A

    There is no easy way to tell whether a drop in Google's crawling comes from lower crawl demand or a lower crawl capacity limit; most of the time a capacity-limit drop is an abrupt step down.

  7. Slide D3-C663 Day 3 · How long does it take to..?

    Google estimated that a spam update affects sites within 1-2 days of the rollout, 1-2 weeks for continuous processing (said on stage as 2 weeks on average) and months for batch refreshes.

    extends
    Stage D3-C286 Day 3 · What are quality updates

    When spammers find loopholes that Google's systems miss, Google releases spam updates that change its systems to catch them.

Built on these claims 7

Developer requirements 7

Sources 13