Google Crawl Team Flags WordPress Plugin Bugs

Google’s crawl team has been actively filing bug reports against WordPress plugins that contribute to significant crawl waste, highlighting the impact these issues can have on site performance and indexing. During a recent episode of the Search Off the Record podcast, Google analyst Gary Illyes explained that WooCommerce was flagged for add-to-cart URL parameters that were unnecessarily expanding the crawlable space on websites. The WooCommerce team responded quickly and implemented a fix, but not all plugin developers have been as responsive.

According to Illyes, other plugins remain unaddressed. One commercial calendar plugin, which generated near-infinite URL paths, went largely ignored by its developers despite outreach from Google. Similarly, another action-parameter plugin identified as creating unnecessary crawlable URLs has yet to be resolved. These action parameters often appear in the form of URL additions like ?add_to_cart=true, which can stack and multiply, effectively doubling or tripling the number of URLs Googlebot needs to crawl.

The internal year-end crawl report revealed that action parameters alone accounted for around 25% of all crawl issues in 2025, second only to faceted navigation, which made up 50%. Together, these two sources represented nearly three-quarters of the total crawl issues flagged by Google last year. Illyes emphasised that these parameters are frequently added by plugins rather than by website owners intentionally, creating hidden crawl challenges for site operators.

The WooCommerce fix provides a clear example of how effective collaboration between plugin developers and Google can be. Illyes explained that once his team identified the source of the problem in WooCommerce, they filed an issue through its open-source repository. The plugin team responded promptly, deploying a solution to prevent unnecessary URLs from being generated. Illyes praised the quick response, noting that not all plugin developers demonstrate the same level of engagement.

This issue is not new. Google has repeatedly warned site owners about the crawl waste caused by URL parameters and formalised its guidance on faceted navigation and URL parameter best practices. Despite these warnings, the data shows that the same problems persist, often embedded at the plugin level. This means websites using these tools may experience crawl inefficiencies beyond their control, yet they remain responsible for managing the consequences.

Illyes highlighted the practical impact: Googlebot cannot determine whether a URL space is useful without crawling a large portion of it. By the time server strain or indexing issues become apparent, the damage is already done. To mitigate the issue, Google consistently recommends using robots.txt to block parameter URLs proactively rather than waiting for symptoms to appear.

Looking ahead, Google filing bugs directly against open-source plugins could help reduce crawl waste at its source, improving overall site efficiency and indexing accuracy. The Search Off the Record episode with Illyes and Martin Splitt provides further details, including strategies for site owners to manage plugin-generated URLs and reduce unnecessary crawl activity.