<b>Crawl frequency tracks update cadence with a 3-crawl lag</b>

<b>Crawl frequency tracks update cadence with a 3-crawl lag</b>
We watched Googlebot recalibrate on 76 sites that changed publishing rhythm.

— Pages updated weekly: recrawled every 6.2 days ▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░
— Updated monthly: every 22.4 days ▓▓░░░░░░░░
— Static 6+ months: every 58.1 days ░░░░░░░░░░

When a stale page suddenly started updating, Googlebot took a median of 3 crawl cycles to tighten its interval. The adjustment lags but it's real — crawl scheduling is adaptive, per-URL.

Reverse held too: pages that went dormant saw crawl intervals stretch ↑ 2.4x within a quarter.

So what: crawl frequency is earned, not requested. Faking freshness with a touched and no real change gets discounted fast. Genuine cadence buys you faster recrawl on the URLs that matter.