Google has updated most of its testing tools with Googlebot evergreen rendering, which improves how the tools process modern websites.
Previously, Google’s testing tools were rendering websites as though they were being viewed using Chrome 41.
The latest version of Google Chrome is 76 – so, as you can imagine, Google’s testing tools were lagging behind modern web browsers.
🎊Today we have fantastic news for you 🎊
Our testing tools received an update to use the evergreen Googlebot renderer, giving you better support for your JS websites!
📖Read more about this release on our blog 👉https://t.co/W2S7LeNz5r— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) August 7, 2019
With Googlebot now being “evergreen,” it will be continuously updated when a new version of Chrome is released.
“At its core the update is a switch from Chrome 41 as the rendering engine to the latest stable Chromium. Googlebot is now using the latest stable Chromium to run JavaScript and render pages. We will continue to update Googlebot along with the stable Chromium, hence we call it “evergreen.””
Specifically, this change will impact the following tools:
- Search Console’s URL inspection tool
- Mobile-friendly test
- Rich results test
- AMP test
Google notes that these updates went through extensive testing before being rolled out to everyone.
Lastly, users should be aware that Googlebot still uses the same user agent as it did before becoming evergreen.
That may change in the future, but at least for now there is no change to the user agent used in testing tools.
