Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that he believes that crawl budget optimization is overrated in his mind. He said for most sites, it doesn't make a difference and that it only can help really massive sites.

John wrote "IMO crawl-budget is over-rated." "Most sites never need to worry about this. It's an interesting topic, and if you're crawling the web or running a multi-billion-URL site, it's important, but for the average site owner less so," he added.

In fact, Google told us that for their own properties, they don't care about crawl budget. So this comes as no surprise.

Here is John's tweet:

IMO crawl-budget is over-rated. Most sites never need to worry about this. It's an interesting topic, and if you're crawling the web or running a multi-billion-URL site, it's important, but for the average site owner less so. — John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) May 30, 2018

This statement may have put a dagger through some SEOs hearts.

Here is more from John on this topic:

I think it's worth being clear about it all though. Removing 25 useless pages is great for a leaner site, and can help users from getting lost there, but it's not a crawl-budget question. Would people only do it for a SEO bonus? How can we help you to help them? — John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) May 30, 2018

Ultimately y'all are the experienced experts, you've seen what works & what doesn't. I trust you to recognize when fixing 5 small things is critical vs when it's just busy-work. — John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) May 30, 2018

Forum discussion at Twitter.