Google has confirmed that Googlebot support Brotli compression
Google makes thousands of updates and integrates with many companies, software, tools, and algorithms. Have you ever thought why does Google do it? To provide users a better experience so they get the best results on Google search results. Whenever I talk about Google update you must get the idea that the article is going to talk about some latest update of Google, right. If you are thinking today’s article is based on Google update then you are absolutely right. Let me give you a synopsis of the update that recently Google confirmed that Googlebot started supporting Brotli compression. Are you aware of Brotli compression? Even if you don’t know, then you no need to worry as I will highlight the definition of Brotli as well.
Make sure you read the article till the end and know everything about Googlebot integration with Brotli compression.
First let’s start with the definition of Brotli compression.
What is Brotli compression?
In very simple words, Brotli compression is an algorithm. The algorithm was developed by a few Google employees back in 2013. Brotli launched for the offline compression of web fonts. The work of the algorithm is to improve the compression ratio over other algorithms like GZIP. It also depicts an impressive decompression speed.
As per Wikipedia, Brotli is a data format specification for data streams compressed with a specific combination of the general-purpose LZ77 lossless compression algorithm, Huffman coding, and 2nd order context modeling. The algorithm is best for text compression.
Let’s now jump into the pool of Google update below.
Google confirms that Googlebot supports Brotli Compression
A few days ago, Gary Illyes from Google confirmed Googlebot has started supporting Brotli compression. I have already told you above that Brotli compression is an algorithm that Google created with its team for text compression. Gary confirmed this on Twitter.
Basically, a user asked whether Googlebot supports Brotli compression or not. On replying to this question, Gary said on Twitter, “Who asked me a few weeks ago whether Googlebot supports Brotli compression?” He said, “I Just had a meeting with the Googlebot team, and … it does.”
Let’s dig deeper and read about Googlebot and Brotli compression.
Integration of Googlebot with Brotli compression
Every webmaster would know that Googlebot is a web crawler that crawls pages via links. It discovers and reads new and updated content and suggests what you all can add to the index. The index here is Google’s brain that stores everything.
But how does Googlebot support Brotli compression? This is the main question here.
Guys, you know that sites without having sitemaps and containing loads of irrelevant pages destroy the performance of the site. And these sites take more than 3 seconds to load which 40% of people eventually leave. It becomes difficult for Googlebot also to crawl your website. Therefore, when you use Brotli compression to shorten the size of your website, it will be helpful for Googlebot to easily crawl your site.
Let me also tell you that initially, Brotli compression did not support web servers until around 2015. But now in 2020, Brotli is now supported by all major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.
Are you wondering whether you should use Brotli compression or not? If yes, the next section will help you get the answer. Just keep reading.
Advantages of using Brotli compression
Brotli is a great compression tool after Gzip. It has 11 levels of compressions and takes more time for the higher compression to work. Here is the list of advantages of Brotli that will help you know why you should use this for your site. Have a look at the list below:
- Brotli uses a dictionary that sends keys and not full keywords. The dictionary is available on both the server and client-side. It contains common keywords and phrases.
- The compression allows much faster transfer time, and smaller file sizes on average. A faster website gets a better search ranking and reflects higher in search results.
- The maximum quality Brotli produces is 1.19X.
- The CSS files compressed with Brotli are 17% smaller.
- Javascript files compressed with Brotli are 14% smaller.
- And HTML files compressed with Brotli are 21% smaller.
- Brotli also provides a better user experience by reducing the load time and making the website speedier. And an efficient fast loading website provides a better user experience always.
Let me tell you that all the advantages I have mentioned above are much better than another compression called Gzip.
Final words
Guys, finally I just want to say that a Brotli compression is a great tool that you can use to compress your website and provide a better user experience. As you see now Googlebot also started supporting Brotli compression, you can easily rely on this tool. Having Brotli compressed website means making it easy for Googlebot to crawl your site and help you enhance its performance. I hope you are happy with this update of Googlebot integration with Brotli compression.
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