Website Crawling: How Do Search Bots Crawl & Rank Sites? 

Website crawling is how a search engine, like Google, uses automatic bots known as crawlers or spiders to crawl and index web pages. 

It simply means crawlers scan the internet by hopping from one page to another via links, gathering data on every page’s content, structure, and relevance. 

The data gathered is then indexed in the search engine; thus, when a user types a set of keywords, the site will be included in the results list. 

What Is Website Crawling? 

To explain in simple terms, website crawling refers to one of the most crucial processes in SEO.  

That is, it is the complete process of the search engine bots to discover new content on diverse websites and index them. 

Now, this crawling does not only include textual content. That is, search engine bots crawl all kinds of content media— 

• Texts, 

• Images, 

• Videos, and 

• Audios to index them in the search engine database. 

So, when there is a search on anything related to these indexed or crawled web content, the search engines can pull up the content from the repository and rank it on the SERPs. 

How Do Search Engine Crawlers Work? 

Crawlers function by following a systematic process of discovery. Here’s how it goes about things:

1. They Begin With A List Of URLs 

Crawlers are handed a list of known web pages; this list may have emerged from previous crawls or through submitted sitemaps. 

2. Fetching And Downloading Pages 

They make an HTTP request to the server hosting some webpage so that they can download the content of the page.

3. Following Links 

The crawler searches for links to other pages within the page and follows them to get more content.

In the search engine, they also crawl and index all the content from all the pages, text, images, metadata, etc.

4. Re-Crawling 

A website is revisited periodically for new information or changes made on the pages that a search engine might index. 

Why Does Website Crawling Matter?

Website crawling is vital in SEO because the search engine can understand and rank your site through it.

If crawlers were not there, search engines could not index your content, making it invisible in search results. Here’s why crawling matters: 

• It helps make your website appear in the search engine results pages, meaning your pages get chances to rank and appear in applicable search results.
• Fresh content indexation occurs where frequent crawl ensures any new or up-to-date content on a site is rapidly added into the search engine indices from your pages, which remain relevant and up to date. 
• Fresh content indexation occurs where frequent crawl ensures any new or up-to-date content on a site is rapidly added into the search engine indices from your pages, which remain relevant and up to date.
• If spiders can crawl your site’s pages and understand your content, they will likely improve for specific keywords.

What Are The Major Website Crawling Factors? 

Here’s a list of factors associated with how a spider will be able to gain entry to crawl into and upon your site:

1. Site Structure

Where your website is well structured, the crawlers will be able to know which part to crawl and find out its contents.

2. Robots.txt File

This can be used as instructions by crawlers on which pages or parts of your site are acceptable or not allowed for crawling. Wrong settings might leave your crucial pages without indexes.

3. XML Sitemap

An updated XML sitemap helps the crawlers find and prioritize your most important pages.

4. Page Speed

Slow sites may hinder crawlers from effectively indexing your site because they can only access some of the content over a reasonable period. 

5. Broken Links

Broken link pages make crawling inefficient because these crawlers are likely stuck and unable to access subsequent pages.

6. Content Accessibility

When your content is embedded behind JavaScript, Flash, or other non-crawler-friendly technologies, the search engine can have problems reading and indexing it. 

How To Improve Website Crawlability? 

Here are a few optimization tips to make sure search engines can efficiently index your website to rank well:

1. Create An XML Sitemap 

Submit an XML sitemap to search engines like Google through Google Search Console. This makes it easy for crawlers to find your website’s important pages.

2. Optimize Your Robots.txt File 

Ensure your robots.txt file is not blocking crawlers from important pages that need to be indexed.

3. Improved Speed Of The Site 

Optimize images, minify JavaScript and CSS, and use caching methods. Making pages load faster is advantageous for both users and crawlers. 

4. Broken Links 

Try to identify broken links or 404 errors and then try to fix them. Crawlers can easily follow the links on your website.

5. Internal Linking 

Use a well-planned internal linking structure so the crawlers can easily follow through your site and index your pages accordingly.

6. Be Mobile-Friendly 

As search engines do mobile-first indexing, ensure your website is mobile-friendly so the crawlers can easily access and rank your content correctly.

7. Limit The Use Of JavaScript And Flash 

Crawlers can now read most scripts of JavaScript scripts, though some older crawlers have not mastered it. Avoid strong reliance on JavaScript or Flash when such content is essential, and navigation is needed. 

Tools For Tracking And Optimizing Crawling 

There are many tools available to track how well search engines are crawling your site and to make changes.

1. Google Search Console

This single free tool by Google would let you know how Googlebot crawls your site and what problems as a problem, such as sitemap submission.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs has a technical SEO audit tool from where you can view which crawlability issue has more than it would hinder the indexing of your webpage. 

3. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

It is a website crawler showing how search engines crawl your website in terms of broken link redirects and even metadata analysis.

4. SEMrush

SEMrush has crawl errors, duplicate content, along many other issues that prevent or affect your website. 

5. DeepCrawl

It’s an entire website crawler that gives you great insight into crawlability and areas that need improvement.

Understanding The Basics Of Website Crawling 

Website Crawling is the basic process of allowing Search Engines to index content for users to find later.

The more accessible your website is to web crawlers, the higher the chance of ranking well in SERP’s. Structure, speed, and accessibility are the main factors determining how efficiently crawlers index your pages.

Optimizing your website for crawling includes using XML sitemaps, fixing broken links, and improving overall site performance.

Checking crawling performance at intervals using tools like Google Search Console and Ahrefs ensures your website is accessible to search engines and ready to perform at search rankings.

FAQs 

Here are some of the basic questions that most digital marketers and brands look for around the concept of website crawling.