Technical SEO Just Got More Technical (But Don’t Panic Yet)

Google recently updated their crawl policy, and if you’ve been on LinkedIn lately, you’ve probably seen the panic. The limit for Googlebot dropped from 15MB down to 2MB, and suddenly every SEO “specialist” is sounding the alarm bells.

Here’s the thing: most of them don’t actually understand what this means.

Let me clear up the confusion for you—because I’ve seen the fear-mongering, and honestly, it’s getting out of hand.

First, Let’s Talk About What Actually Changed

Google’s crawler (Googlebot) will now stop downloading your page after it hits 2MB of HTML content. That’s down from the previous 15MB limit.

Now, before you start stress-testing your entire website, let me put this in perspective: 15MB was absolutely massive. Like, ridiculously huge for a web page. So Google knocking this down to 2MB actually makes complete sense.

Here’s why I’m so confident about this: I built a crawler to help train my AI agents on client websites. When I crawl a typical 50-page website, you know what I get? About 130KB total. That’s for 50 pages. One single page averages around 2-3KB of actual content.

Yeah. We’re talking about a limit that’s 1,000 times larger than what most pages actually need.

What the 2MB Limit Actually Means (The Part Everyone Gets Wrong)

Alright, let’s break down the confusion because this is where most people—including some SEOs who should know better—are getting it completely twisted.

It’s 2MB Per Page, Not Your Whole Website

First off, this is a per-page limit. Google crawls each page individually, so every page on your site gets its own 2MB allowance.

Your CSS and JavaScript Files Don’t Count (Mostly)

Here’s the critical part that everyone’s missing: each resource is fetched separately with its own 2MB limit.

What does that mean in plain English?

• Your HTML page: 2MB limit
• Your stylesheet (styles.css): separate 2MB limit
• Your JavaScript file (script.js): separate 2MB limit
• Each image: separate 2MB limit

So when you open Chrome DevTools and see “Page Size: 4MB” or “10MB,” don’t freak out. That number includes everything—images, CSS files, JavaScript files, fonts, the works. That’s not what Google’s 2MB limit is measuring.

The PDF Exception (Important for Law Firms!)

Here’s something nobody’s talking about: PDFs get a 64MB limit, not 2MB.

If you’re a law firm serving case studies as PDFs, or a real estate developer with property brochures, you’ve got way more breathing room. This is specifically about HTML pages.

The Uncompressed Data Gotcha

One more technical detail that matters: Google measures the uncompressed size of your page.

What does this mean? Even if you’re using Gzip compression (which you should be), and your page transfers at 800KB over the wire, if it decompresses to 2.2MB, Google’s still going to cut it off at 2MB.

So when you’re checking your page size, you need to look at the actual uncompressed resource size, not the transfer size.

How to Check If Your Site Is Safe

Let me show you exactly how to check your pages. It’s easier than you think.

Method 1: Chrome DevTools (The Quick Check)

1. Press F12 to open DevTools
2. Go to the Network tab
3. Refresh your page
4. Look for your main HTML document (usually the first entry, ends in .html or just shows your URL)
5. Check the Size column—you want the second number (uncompressed size)

Don’t let all those other files scare you. You’re looking for the HTML document, not the JPGs, CSS files, or JavaScript files.

Method 2: Screaming Frog SEO Spider

If you’ve got access to Screaming Frog:

• Crawl your site
• Export the Response Codes report
• Filter for HTML files
• Sort by size

Method 3: Use My Crawler

I’ve got a crawler tool that’ll run your pages and show you exactly what size Google sees. It’s not public yet but feel free to reach to me and i’ll do any analysis on your website and let you know if its too big.

Method 4: Command Line (For the Tech-Savvy)

Windows PowerShell

(Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://yoursite.com" -UseBasicParsing).RawContent.Length / 1KB

The Reality Check: You’re Probably Fine

I’ve analyzed over 500 client websites since this announcement dropped. Here’s what I found:

• Average HTML size: 45-80KB
• Largest page found: 890KB (a WordPress site running 15+ plugins)
• Pages over 1MB: Less than 0.5%

Let me say that again: less than half of one percent of pages are even close to being a problem.

My honest assessment: 95% of you are completely safe from this update.

So What Actually Happens If You Go Over 2MB?

Let’s say you’re in that 5% with oversized pages. What happens?

Google stops crawling at the 2MB mark. Whatever content it grabbed up to that point gets indexed, and everything after gets ignored.

Will you get penalized? No. Google’s not going to punish you for having a big page. They’ll just index what they could download and move on.

The real risk: If your important content—your H1 tags, key paragraphs, schema markup, call-to-action—loads late in your HTML, Google might never see it.

Pro tip: Your critical page elements should appear in the first 500KB of HTML. Front-load the important stuff.

Understanding the Three Different Concepts (Stop Confusing Them)

Here’s where a lot of SEOs mix things up. There are three separate things happening:

1. Crawling – Googlebot downloading your page (this is where the 2MB limit applies)
2. Rendering – Google processing your JavaScript and CSS (separate resource limits for each file)
3. Indexing – Google deciding what to show in search results

A page can be:

• Crawled but not indexed (you used a noindex tag)
• Indexed but not fully crawled (Google knows the URL exists but hit the size limit)
• Blocked from crawling but still indexed (if other sites link to you, your URL can appear in results even if Google can’t crawl it)

Mobile-First Matters Even More Now

Here’s something to keep in mind: Google primarily uses Googlebot Smartphone for crawling nowadays. Your mobile version gets way more attention than your desktop version.

This means:

• Your mobile HTML should definitely be under 2MB (it almost certainly already is)
• Desktop gets crawled less frequently anyway
• Mobile page speed is more critical than ever

When you’re checking page sizes, use Chrome’s Device Toolbar in DevTools to simulate mobile first.

Who Actually Needs to Worry? (The 5%)

If you’re in one of these situations, you might want to audit your pages:

WordPress Users with Heavy Page Builders

WordPress loves to bloat pages with inline CSS and JavaScript. If you’re using page builders like Elementor, Divi, or WPBakery, each one can inject 300-500KB of inline CSS per page.

Common WordPress offenders:

• Page builders embedding tons of inline styles
• Plugin bloat (each plugin adds its own CSS/JS)
• Heavy theme frameworks (Genesis, Avada, Astra with all features enabled)
• Gutenberg with dozens of blocks on a single page

Quick fixes:

• Use Asset CleanUp to disable unnecessary CSS/JS per page
• Try Autoptimize to move inline code to external files
• Use WP Rocket to defer non-critical resources
• Audit your plugins—do you really need all of them?

Giant Practice Area Pages (Law Firms, I’m Looking at You)

If you’ve got a Personal Injury page that lists out Car Accidents, Truck Accidents, Medical Malpractice, Slip and Fall, Dog Bites, and 20 other case types with full descriptions all on one page—yeah, you might want to rethink that structure.

Better approach:

• Create separate pages for each practice area
• Use your main Personal Injury page as a hub that links out
• Add case results on individual pages, not all on one massive page
• If you’re listing 50+ case results, paginate them (10 per page)

Real Estate Listing Pages with Everything Embedded

Property pages with 30+ units, inline JavaScript for interactive maps, embedded virtual tours, and full photo galleries all on one page? That could be pushing it.

Better approach:

• Move JavaScript to external files
• Use image galleries that lazy-load (thumbnails first, full images on click)
• Create separate pages for floor plans, amenities, and location details
• Let users navigate between sections instead of cramming everything on one page

Massive Comment Sections

If you’re loading hundreds of comments directly in your HTML (looking at you, WordPress sites with threaded comments 10 levels deep), that can add up fast.

Solution: Paginate comments or load them dynamically.

What You Can Do If You’re Actually Affected

Let’s say you run the tests and find a page over 2MB. Here’s your action plan:

1. Split Up Your Content

If you’ve got one massive page trying to be everything to everyone, break it up. Each topic deserves its own page anyway—it’s better for SEO and better for users.

Example: Instead of one “Personal Injury Law” page with every case type, create:

• Main hub: “Personal Injury Law” (overview + links)
• Separate pages: “Car Accident Lawyer,” “Truck Accident Lawyer,” “Medical Malpractice Attorney”

Each page can go deep on its topic without bloating a single page.

2. Move Inline Code to External Files

Tons of inline CSS and JavaScript? Move it to external .css and .js files. Each external file gets its own 2MB limit, plus they can be cached by browsers.

3. Audit Your WordPress Plugins

Seriously, do you need 30 plugins? Each one is adding weight. Deactivate the ones you’re not using, and look for lighter alternatives to the heavy ones.

4. Check Your HTML Comments

Some developers leave massive comments in the HTML source code. Clean those up. Google doesn’t need to crawl your development notes.

5. Optimize Your Schema Markup

If you’re embedding huge JSON-LD schema blocks, consider if all that data needs to be there. Sometimes less is more.

Why Is Everyone Freaking Out? (Let’s Talk About the Panic)

You’re probably wondering why LinkedIn is melting down if this affects less than 5% of sites.

Here’s why everyone’s losing their minds:

1. Google’s announcement was technical AF – They didn’t provide context or examples
2. SEO tools started showing warnings – Screenshot that scary red alert, post to LinkedIn, watch the engagement roll in
3. Nobody explained what 2MB actually looks like – Most SEOs have never even seen a 2MB HTML page in the wild

The reality: This change eliminates edge cases. It’s Google saying “we were being way too generous before, time to clean up the outliers.”

If you’re building normal websites—even content-heavy sites—you’re fine.

The Bottom Line

Google dropped the crawl limit from 15MB to 2MB. It sounds dramatic, but here’s what you need to know:

✅ 2MB is per page, not your whole site
✅ External resources (CSS, JS, images) each get their own 2MB limit
✅ PDFs get 64MB, not 2MB
✅ 95% of websites are nowhere close to the limit
✅ Average HTML page is 45-80KB (you’d need to be 25-40 times larger to hit the limit)

Check your site using DevTools. Look at the uncompressed size of your HTML documents. If you’re under 500KB, sleep easy. If you’re over 1MB, maybe consider splitting things up.

And if anyone tries to sell you “emergency 2MB optimization services,” kindly tell them to pound sand.