So now as SEOs, you need to follow all the latest changes in Chrome because whatever support Chrome adds, it is likely that GoogleBot will support it as well with the evergreen GoogleBot.
Ilya Grigorik from the Google team posted on Twitter that the Chrome team added native lazy loading support to Chrome 76 and that means when GoogleBot is running off of 76, which should be soon, it also will natively support it.
Native lazy-loading support in Chrome 76! Everything you need to know @ https://t.co/n7wBM1DLoT
— Ilya Grigorik (@igrigorik) August 13, 2019
This is awesome. pic.twitter.com/3vDIC1QCsy
Gary Illyes from Google asked Martin Splitt from Google to confirm this would also work for GoogleBot rendering's engine and Martin said yes.
Yup.
— Martin Splitt @ 🇨🇭🏡 (@g33konaut) August 14, 2019
John Mueller from Google added a bit more context to the matter:
Well, sure, i meant the lazy part, i just didn't mention that cos I'm lazy.
— Gary "鯨理" Illyes (@methode) August 14, 2019
Again, GoogleBot is not yet on Chrome 76, but it should be soon.
Forum discussion at Twitter.