When you look at Crawl Stats in Google Search Console, you’ll see the terms Discover and Refresh. Here’s what they mean:
Discover
- Discover is when Googlebot finds a new page on your website that it hasn’t seen before.
- This usually happens when you publish a new blog post, product page, or any new content.
- Googlebot “discovers” these pages by following links or reading your sitemap.
Refresh
- Refresh is when Googlebot returns to a page it already knows about to check if anything has changed.
- This happens with existing pages that you might update, like adding new info to an old post or updating your homepage.
- Googlebot “refreshes” its information to make sure the latest version of your page is in Google’s index.
Scenarios: Discover
- New Blog Post Published
- You publish a brand new blog article called “10 Tips for Summer Gardening.”
- Googlebot crawls this page for the very first time.
- This is a Discover crawl.
- New Product Added
- Your online store launches a new product page for a smartphone.
- Googlebot finds this new product page by following a link from your homepage or sitemap.
- This counts as Discover.
- Launching a New Category
- You add a new “Recipes” section to your food blog.
- Googlebot finds the new category page during its next crawl.
- That’s a Discover event.
Scenarios: Refresh
- Updating an Old Article
- You update your “Best Gardening Tools 2024” post with new product info.
- Googlebot revisits the page to check for these changes.
- This is a Refresh crawl.
- Changing Prices on a Product Page
- You change the price of a laptop on an existing product page.
- Googlebot comes back to re-crawl the page and update its index with the new price.
- This is a Refresh.
- Refreshing the Homepage
- You update your homepage with a new banner or announcement.
- Googlebot re-crawls the homepage to see the latest content.
- This is counted as Refresh.
| Scenario | Crawl Purpose |
|---|---|
| New blog post added | Discover |
| New product page created | Discover |
| New category page launched | Discover |
| Old article updated | Refresh |
| Price changed on existing page | Refresh |
| Homepage updated | Refresh |
Why does this matter?
If Google is regularly “discovering” and “refreshing” your pages, it means your site is being crawled actively, and your new or updated content can show up in Google search results more quickly.
Discover more from Rudra Kasturi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.