DesignRush SEO Roundup: Googlebot Limits, Reddit Pro Launch

DesignRush's SEO team tracks the major developments transforming search and paid media each week. Marketing teams needing expert support can explore our curated SEO agency directory for vetted specialists.

This week's roundup examines Google's crawler infrastructure, page weight trends, AI referral patterns, and new publisher distribution tools.

Here's what digital marketing teams need to know from the past seven days.

Search Live Expands With Gemini 3.1 Flash Live

Google has expanded Search Live to more than 200 countries, bringing voice and camera conversations to AI Mode globally.

The rollout runs on Gemini 3.1 Flash Live, an audio model built for natural conversation that handles multiple languages natively.

Users can now speak with Search in their preferred language, receive audio responses, and continue with follow-ups while web links appear alongside voice answers.

Google Explains Googlebot Crawling Systems

Google published technical documentation on how Googlebot's crawling systems work, covering byte limits, partial fetching behavior, and infrastructure organization.

The company revealed a 15 MB default limit across its crawl infrastructure, with each URL allocated separately and referenced sources fetched independently.

This differs from published limits showing Googlebot crawls 2 MB for supported file types and up to 64 MB for PDFs, indicating internal teams can override defaults.

Reddit Opens Pro Publisher Tools to Everyone

Reddit removed its waitlist and opened Pro publisher tools to all publishers through free public beta access.

Publishers can now track where content gets shared across Reddit, auto-import articles via RSS for quick posting, and receive AI-powered community recommendations.

Early testers saw median post views increase by 46%, profile views nearly double, and median comments on stories grow 48% after adopting the tools.

Gemini Referral Traffic Doubles as ChatGPT Declines

Google Gemini more than doubled its referral traffic to websites between November and January, according to SE Ranking data from 101,000 sites.

The increase started in December after Google rolled out Gemini 3 models, with Gemini now sending 29% more visitors globally than Perplexity.

ChatGPT's referral traffic also peaked in October and fell 18% in December, though it still generates about 80% of all AI referral traffic to websites.

Web Pages Grow 3x as Size Debate Resurfaces

On a "Search off the Record" podcast, Google's Search Relations team discussed page weight growth.

They noted that median mobile homepages expanded from 845 KB in 2015 to 2,362 KB by July.

Gary Illyes raised concerns that structured data may add unnecessary page weight, noting that machines should be able to understand content without it.

Martin Splitt also confirmed that page size still affects user experience, particularly on slower connections or metered satellite internet, where data transfer costs accumulate.

Click Signals Drive Rankings and AI Answers

SEO expert Cyrus Shepard detailed how Google tracks impressions and clicks to measure relevance, engagement, and satisfaction.

Google records user actions, measuring how long visitors stay before returning to results and weighting clicks by query, user type, language, and location.

These signals feed both search rankings and AI answers, with platforms like ChatGPT drawing on Google results shaped in part by click data.

SEO Industry Insights

SEO consultant Harpreet Chatha reported that Instagram is appearing frequently in Google's AI Overviews, with 4.5 million of 6 million citations going to IG Reels.

The trend gives brands a direct channel to control narrative around branded queries as Google's AI systems increasingly favor Instagram content for visual and brand-focused searches.

SEO strategist Peter Rota also shared findings showing that pages buried five or six clicks deep from the homepage get treated as lower priority.

Google and AI models treat deeper pages as less important, while flat site structures keep pages within three to four levels to improve crawling and prioritization.

This week's updates highlight three immediate action items:

• Flatten site architecture. Keep pages within three to four clicks from the homepage to improve crawl frequency and visibility.
• Design content to complete user intent. Answer follow-up questions and guide next steps to keep users engaged.
• Strengthen Instagram presence. Active Reels content can influence visibility in AI-driven search results.

Getting your technical setup right affects how you show up in both search results and AI answers.

Our Take: Does Technical Complexity Still Win?

We think Google publishing its internal crawler mechanics means the company is acknowledging that technical infrastructure directly impacts discoverability.

The 3x page size growth raises questions about whether adding layers of structured data and tracking scripts actually helps sites rank or whether it just creates bloat.

Gemini's traffic surge coinciding with its model upgrade also suggests that AI platforms with better underlying technology will capture more referral flow.

Lastly, the click depth findings confirm what many have suspected.

Sites that are optimized for both human navigation and crawler efficiency consistently outperform those that are solely focused on one or the other.

For analysis on March spam updates and AI title rewrites, check out last week's SEO roundup.

What technical optimizations are you prioritizing?

These leading SEO agencies build technical foundations that support both traditional crawling and emerging AI discovery requirements.