DeepCrawl discovered that Google is testing a new GoogleBot that can render the web like a modern Chrome browser.
We knew Google was looking to improve GoogleBot’s ability to render web pages using more advanced JavaScript or advanced web apps. Google developer advocate Martin Splitt has confirmed the test.
GoogleBot rendering more. Here is a screen shot from DeepCrawl showing what this new experimental GoogleBot can render, which is above Chrome version 69:
This is what the normal GoogleBot can render, similar to Chrome version 41:
Google confirmed. Martin Splitt from Google has confirmed on Twitter that this is indeed something Google is testing. Martin said “We’re testing things all the time and sometimes these experiments are visible.”
Why we should care. If GoogleBot is able to render web pages like a modern browser, SEOs, publishers and content producers won’t have to worry as much when building modern web apps. These web apps won’t need workarounds like dynamic rendering to get the content crawled, indexed and potentially ranking well in Google search.
About The Author
Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land’s News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.