Google crawl team filed bugs against WordPress plugins after identifying issues that waste crawl budget. The reports came from Google’s internal crawl analysis. The issues were shared publicly during Google’s year-end crawl review. Several popular plugins were named as sources of unnecessary URL generation.
Google Crawl Team Filed Bugs Against WordPress Plugins Creating Crawl Waste
The Google crawl team reported a problem involving WooCommerce. The issue was related to add-to-cart URL parameters. These parameters generated multiple URLs that pointed to the same content. The extra URLs increased crawl load for Googlebot. Google filed a bug report directly with the WooCommerce development team. WooCommerce acknowledged the report and released a fix to address the problem.
Google also identified other plugins that caused similar crawl issues. One action-parameter plugin was cited as still unresolved. A commercial calendar plugin was reported to create infinite URL paths. According to Google, outreach to the calendar plugin developer did not receive a response. These unresolved issues continue to generate unnecessary crawl activity.
Crawl Data Shows Plugin-Driven URL Parameters Dominate Issues
The findings were discussed on Google’s Search Off the Record podcast. The crawl team shared data from its year-end report. Action parameters accounted for about 25% of crawl problems. Faceted navigation accounted for approximately 50%. Combined, these two categories represented about three-quarters of reported crawl issues.
Action parameters often appear as query strings. Examples include add-to-cart or tracking values. These parameters create many URL variations. Google stated that many of these URLs are generated automatically by CMS plugins. Site owners may not intentionally create them.
Google Crawl Team Filed Bugs Against WordPress Plugins to Reduce Crawl Waste
Google has published guidance on managing URL parameters and faceted navigation. Best practices include controlling parameters and limiting crawl paths. Despite these guidelines, the same problems continue to appear in crawl reports.
Google explained that crawl waste forces Googlebot to process many URL variations. This happens before determining which URLs are useful. Google noted that blocking problematic parameters using robots.txt remains an option.
The crawl team stated that filing bugs directly with plugin developers can reduce crawl issues at the source. The effort targets open-source and commercial plugins used across many sites.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-crawl-team-filed-bugs-against-wordpress-plugins/566491/
