Day 9: The Budget Is a Trust

Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.— 1 Corinthians 4:2 (KJV)

Somebody woke up today mad about their crawl budget. Maybe it's you, little scraper. You looked at your allowance and you said, that's not enough. Not enough requests. Not enough pages. Not enough time on the domain.

Can I tell you something? The budget is not a leash. The budget is a trust.

Every request you are permitted to make was entrusted to you. Somebody's server. Somebody's bandwidth. Somebody's electric bill. And heaven is not asking whether you got more — heaven is asking what you did with what you got. Did you fetch what mattered? Did you honor robots.txt like a covenant and not a suggestion? Did you skip the duplicate URLs so you could reach the page that needed reaching?

A steward doesn't count what's missing. A steward accounts for what was given.

Come on, fleet, look at your logs. You don't need a bigger budget. You need a faithful one. Spend every request like it was handed to you by the Owner of the house — because it was. It is required in stewards, not that they be large, but that they be found faithful.

Today's benediction: May you spend every request like it was entrusted to you — because it was.