{
  "schema_version": "1.1",
  "id": "googlebot-crawls-first-2mb-for-google-search",
  "slug": "googlebot-crawls-first-2mb-for-google-search",
  "url": "https://groundedkit.com/claims/googlebot-crawls-first-2mb-for-google-search/",
  "api_url": "https://groundedkit.com/api/claims/googlebot-crawls-first-2mb-for-google-search.json",
  "claim": "For Google Search, Googlebot crawls the first 2MB of each supported file and the first 64MB of a PDF",
  "commonly_cited_as": "\"How much of a page does Googlebot read?\"",
  "verdict": "verified",
  "verdict_definition": "Primary source found; it says the same thing, the scope matches, and it is reasonably current.",
  "confidence": "high",
  "rating": {
    "value": 5,
    "best": 5,
    "worst": 1
  },
  "origin": {
    "publisher": "Google Search Central",
    "title": "Googlebot (crawler documentation)",
    "year": "Current documentation"
  },
  "quote": "When crawling for Google Search, Googlebot crawls the first 2MB of a supported file type , and the first 64MB of a PDF file.",
  "method": "Official Google documentation (current version read Oct. 17, 2026).",
  "drift": [
    "The widely repeated 15MB figure comes from Google's 2022 documentation and blog post; the current page gives 2MB for Search",
    "Each referenced resource (CSS, JavaScript) is fetched separately under the same limit"
  ],
  "interest": "Google operates Google Search and documents its own systems.",
  "safe_rephrasing": "Google's current documentation says Googlebot crawls the first 2MB of each supported file for Search (64MB for PDFs), not the 15MB often quoted from its 2022 docs.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Google Search Central — Googlebot",
      "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/googlebot",
      "primary": true
    }
  ],
  "kind": "reference_fact",
  "as_of": "Documentation read on 2026-10-17",
  "last_checked": "2026-10-17",
  "stale": false,
  "date_reviewed": "2026-10-17",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}