Crawling is an important part of technical SEO for search engine optimization. By knowing crawling and what it means, website owners and SEO professionals can make their websites more visible and make sure search engines can analyze them well.
In technical SEO, crawling means that search engine bots, also called web crawlers or spiders, automatically look at web pages. These digital spiders are let loose on the web, constantly moving through the complex network of linked pages and gathering important information.
The crawling process starts with a set of seed URLs, the first URLs the bots look at. From there, they follow links to index each page, making a visual picture of the web. This careful searching allows search engines to collect and show people relevant web pages in search results.
What does crawling have to do with technical SEO? Well, imagine having a website that looks great and has useful information, but it's hidden deep in the internet, and search engines can't find it. This gap is filled by crawling, which lets search engine bots find, study, and index your web pages, making them available to people who want to visit them.
In this blog post, we'll look closely at the technical SEO details of crawling. We'll talk about how web crawlers work, the different kinds of crawlers, and how crawling is a key part of how search engines index websites. So, whether you're new to the world of SEO or a seasoned pro looking to boost the exposure of your website, get ready to learn the secrets of crawling and how to improve your online profile.
Section 1: Basics of Crawling
- Learn about web crawlers
- Why crawling is important for search engine indexing
- Different types of crawlers
Learn about web crawlers:
Web crawlers, also called spiders or bots, are automatic programs that search engines use to look through the internet and find web pages in a planned way. These bots follow links from one page to the next, gathering information that will be used to make an index of the web.
- Definition of web crawlers
- How web crawlers work
Definition of web crawlers:
Web spiders are complex programs that move around the internet, visit websites, and get information from HTML documents. They move around the linked web, looking at new and old pages to determine their relevance and then indexing them properly.
How web crawlers work:
Web crawlers start by going to a set of known URLs, often called "seed URLs." Then, they click on links on those pages to find more URLs. This process continues in circles, letting the bots crawl many web pages and build a big index.
Why crawling is important for search engine indexing:
Crawling is what search engine ranking is built on. By going through online pages in a planned way, search engine crawlers learn about a site's content, structure, and how pages link to each other. This information tells the search engines how to rank and list the web pages in their findings.
Different types of crawlers:
When crawling, we come across different crawlers, each doing something different.
- Crawlers for search engines like Googlebot, Bingbot, and others
- Customized spiders
Crawlers for search engines like Googlebot, Bingbot, and others:
Search engines like Google, Bing, and others use search engine crawlers to scan web pages and give people the best search results. These robots follow the rules and formulas that search engines set up to ensure that indexing and ranking work well.
Customized spiders:
Website owners or SEO experts can use bots to collect information from specific websites or niches. These bots can be changed to get specific information and do in-depth analysis for different reasons, like researching competitors or scraping the material.
Section 2: The Crawling Process
- A step-by-step look at the process of crawling
- What the crawl budget means for indexing
A step-by-step look at the process of crawling:
To fully understand how crawling works, let's look at the order of the steps:
- How to find URLs
- How to get online pages
- Parsing HTML
- Taking out links
- Storing data
How to find URLs:
The process of crawling starts with finding the first URLs. This can be done by giving the crawler seed URLs or following external links from pages that have already been crawled.
How to get online pages:
Once the URLs are found, the web crawler sends HTTP requests to the web servers that hold those pages to get the related web pages.
Parsing HTML:
After getting the web pages, the crawler parses the HTML code to get information like written content, statistics, and links.
Taking out links:
During the processing step, the crawler finds links in the HTML code and pulls them out. These links take the crawler to other web pages.
Storing data:
As the crawler moves along, it saves the data and links it finds. This lets search engines analyze and index them later.
What the crawl budget means for indexing:
A crawl budget is the number of pages or URLs a search engine is ready to crawl on a certain website in time. It depends on things like the site's reputation, how relevant it is, and how much computer space it has.
- What is a crawl budget?
- Things that affect the crawl budget
- Crawl budget optimization for better indexing
What is a crawl budget?
The crawl budget is how much time and money search engines spend crawling a page. It tells search engines how many pages they can and will crawl in a certain amount of time.
Things that affect the crawl budget:
The crawl budget of a website is affected by several things, such as its overall popularity, site speed, server performance, and the quality of its XML sitemap.
Crawl budget optimization for better indexing:
Website owners and SEO professionals can use the following techniques to make the best use of the crawl budget and better indexing:
- How to speed up a website
- Enhance site structure
- Manage XML sitemap
- Monitor crawl errors
- Optimize robots.txt
How to speed up a website:
Websites that load slowly use more crawl budget because robots must wait longer for pages to load. You can improve crawl efficiency by improving your website's speed, lowering the time it takes for the server to respond, and reducing the number of resource-intensive elements.
Enhance site structure:
A website that is well-organized and arranged sensibly makes it easier for search engine crawlers to find their way around and index pages. Use clear hierarchies, easy browsing, and internal links to guide bots and put the most important pages at the top.
Manage XML sitemap:
XML sitemaps are like a road plan for search engine crawlers because they show them where the most important pages on your site are. Update and improve your XML sitemap regularly to ensure it truly shows your site's structure and top pages.
Monitor crawl errors:
Crawl mistakes happen when search engine bots have trouble crawling your page because of broken links or server problems. Keep an eye on crawl mistakes and fix them quickly to avoid wasting crawl funds and improve the crawling process.
Optimize robots.txt:
The robots.txt file tells search engine workers which pages to crawl and which to skip. Ensure it is set up properly so crawlers can get to the important pages while stopping irrelevant or duplicate content that could waste the crawl budget.
Section 3: Common Problems with Crawling
- What happens to crawl when there is duplicate content
- What do URL parameters mean for crawling
- What JavaScript does to crawling:
- Common problems with websites that use JavaScript
- Ways to improve crawling with JavaScript
What happens to crawl when there is duplicate content:
Duplicate content is information that is the same or very similar on more than one web page. It can mess up crawling and ranking, confusing search engine bots.
- Why there's so much of it
- How material that is duplicated affects crawling
- Best practices to handle similar content
Why there's so much of it:
Many things can lead to duplicate information, such as:
- Versions of web pages that can be printed
- URLs with session IDs or tracking data
- HTTP versions of a page vs.
- Sharing content without the right canonicalization
- URL changes due to URL parameters
How material that is duplicated affects crawling:
When search engine bots find duplicate content, it can be hard to determine which version is the best and most useful. This can waste the crawl budget because crawlers may spend too much time crawling and indexing similar pages instead of unique and useful content.
Best practices to handle similar content:
Consider putting the following best practices into place to reduce problems with similar content and make crawling more effective:
- Canonicalization
- URL parameter handling
- Consolidate similar content
Canonicalization:
Use canonical tags to say which version of a page is the best when there is more than one. This lets search engines know which version to read and keeps the crawl budget from being split between the same pages.
URL parameter handling:
Set up your website's URL parameters so search engines know how to handle them. Use the tools for handling parameters in the settings for the search panel to tell crawlers which parameters to skip and which to treat as different pages.
Consolidate similar content:
If you have similar information on various pages, you might want to put it all on one page so that search engines can find a clear, authoritative source.
What URL parameters mean for crawling:
URL parameters can be added to a URL to give a website specific directions or data. URL parameters have many uses, but if they are not handled well, they can sometimes cause crawling problems.
- How to explain URL parameters
- URL options can cause problems
- Managing URL values so that crawling works well
How to explain URL parameters:
URL parameters are factors or numbers added to a URL's end, usually after a question mark (?). They are used to send specific information to a website, like search requests, session IDs, or tracking data.
URL options can cause problems:
URL options can make it hard for search engines to do things like:
- Creating many different URLs for the same information
- causing searching of pages more than once
- Using up crawl funds by making too many URLs that can be crawled
- causing crawling and ranking of important pages to work less well
Managing URL values so that crawling works well:
Consider putting in place the following methods to improve crawling and indexing while handling URL parameters:
- Excluding a parameter
- Parameter consolidation
- Parameter canonicalization
- Pagination handling
Excluding a parameter:
Find the factors that don't change the content or user experience much and don't want search engines to crawl them. You can stop crawlers from viewing URLs with certain parameters using the "Disallow" directive in the robots.txt file.
Parameter consolidation:
If different URL factors lead to the same or related information, combine them into one URL. This helps eliminate problems with similar content and ensures that search engine bots pay attention to the main URL.
Parameter canonicalization:
Use canonical tags on pages with URL options to show which version of the page should be the main one. This tells search engines that the chosen URL is the one they should index, while versions with parameters should be treated as duplicates.
Pagination handling:
If your website has information separated into pages, use rel="next" and rel="prev" tags to show how the pages relate. This helps search engines figure out the order of pages and stops them from crawling the same content more than once.
What JavaScript does to crawling:
JavaScript is an important part of building websites today, but it can be hard for search engine crawlers to understand. For crawling and searching to work well, you need to know how search engines handle JavaScript and use optimization methods.
- How search engines deal with JavaScript
How search engines deal with JavaScript:
Over the past few years, search engine bots have better understood JavaScript. But they may still have trouble showing and running pages with a lot of JavaScript.
Crawlers usually go through two steps:
- Crawling:
- Rendering
Crawling:
The first thing search engine bots do is get a page's HTML and general layout. During this time, they might not run or display JavaScript, which means they might miss out on interactive content.
Rendering:
After crawling the page, a search engine might try to display it by running JavaScript to show any dynamic content. This step lets them add the full-page text to the index.
Common problems with websites that use JavaScript:
Crawling problems can occur on websites built on JavaScript, such as:
- The content is hidden behind exchanges with JavaScript
- The content took too long to load
- Unfinished translation
The content is hidden behind exchanges with JavaScript:
Crawlers might not be able to access or understand the material that needs input from the user or that loads dynamically with JavaScript.
Content took too long to load:
JavaScript can load content asynchronously or after a certain amount of time, which can cause bots to miss or skip the content during the first crawl.
Unfinished translation:
If JavaScript creates or changes important page parts, search engine bots may not be able to display them correctly, which could lead to an incomplete index.
Ways to improve crawling with JavaScript:
To make sure that crawling and search of JavaScript-based websites works well, you might want to try the following:
- Progressive enhancement
- Prerendering and server-side rendering (SSR)
- Implement organized data
- Test and keep an eye on the rendering
Progressive enhancement:
Use a "progressive enhancement" method to ensure the most important information and functions can be used without JavaScript. This ensures that search engines can access and index your website's main information.
Prerendering and server-side rendering (SSR):
Consider using prerendering or SSR methods, in which HTML copies of your JavaScript-driven pages are made by processes that run on the server. This lets search engine bots access fully rendered material without relying on JavaScript processing alone.
Implement organized data:
Use organized data markups like JSON-LD or microdata to give clear information about the content of your website, including the changing parts. This makes it easier for search engines to understand and list organized data.
Test and keep an eye on rendering:
Monitor and test how search engine bots display your JavaScript pages. Tools like Google's Fetch and Render and third-party tools like Screaming Frog can show you how bots understand and display the information on your website.
Section 4: Tools for Crawling and Analysis
- Popular tools for crawling
- Crawling tools' main traits and advantages
- For technical SEO research, use crawling tools
Popular tools for crawling:
Several crawling tools can help website owners and SEO experts analyze and improve their sites.
Let's look at some of the most popular:
- Scared Frog
- DeepCrawl
- Sitebulb
Scared Frog:
Screaming Frog is a powerful desktop crawler that gives detailed information about many parts of a page. It lets you crawl websites and get information about broken links, similar content, meta tags, and page names. Screaming Frog is a great tool for technical SEO research because it is easy to use and has many reporting options.
DeepCrawl:
DeepCrawl is a crawling tool that works in the cloud and gives an in-depth study of websites. It gives helpful information about technical SEO problems like duplicate content, redirect chains, XML sitemap mistakes, and site speed. DeepCrawl is a must-have tool for big websites and SEO at the business level because of its advanced features and reporting.
Sitebulb:
Another popular crawling and reviewing tool is Sitebulb, known for its easy-to-use layout and thorough analysis. It gives thorough reports on a website's crawlability, site layout, internal links, and content optimization, among other things. SEO pros like Sitebulb because it has easy-to-understand images and practical suggestions.
Crawling tools' main traits and advantages:
Crawling tools have a lot of perks and features that make technical SEO research easier:
- Effectively crawl large websites
- Find out about technology problems
- Analyze information and on-page elements
- Find chances for internal linking
- Extract info for XML sitemaps and robots.txt
Effectively crawl large websites:
Crawling tools allow analysing websites with thousands or millions of pages quickly and easily. This saves time and effort compared to inspecting each page by hand.
Find out about technology problems:
These tools find technical SEO problems like lost links, duplicate content, and crawling mistakes so that website owners can fix them and make their sites run better.
Analyze information and on-page elements:
Crawling tools give information about page names, meta descriptions, header tags, and other page parts, which helps improve content for search engines and users.
Find chances for internal linking:
Crawling tools analyze internal linking systems to find ways to improve website browsing, spread link equity, and make crawling and indexing more effective.
Extract info for XML sitemaps and robots.txt:
To ensure proper crawling and tracking of important pages while restricting access to sensitive areas, crawling tools can produce XML sitemaps and offer suggestions for improving robots.txt files.
For technical SEO research, use crawling tools:
Consider the following ways to use crawling tools successfully for technical SEO analysis:
- Set up regular crawls
- Prioritize important issues
- Make use of reports and visualisation
- Combining other SEO tools
Set up regular crawls:
Set up regular crawls to track and study your website's performance over time. This helps find new problems and track how SEO changes are going.
Prioritize important issues:
Pay attention to the most important problems the crawling tools find, like broken links, crawl mistakes, and similar content. Fixing these problems quickly will make crawling more effective and improve the user experience.
Make use of reports and visualisation:
Use crawling tools' reports and display features to show stakeholders what you've learned about SEO. Visualizations make it easy to spot trends and decide what to do first.
Combining other SEO tools:
Combine crawling tools with other SEO software, like Google Analytics or keyword research tools, to get a full picture of how your website is doing and ensure your SEO efforts are on the same track.
Using crawling tools, website owners and SEO experts can learn important things about their site's technical SEO, find problems, and make changes to improve crawling indexing and general search engine exposure.
Section 5: Advanced Crawling Techniques
- The role of XML sitemaps in crawling
- XML sitemaps are sent to search engines
- Updating and improving XML sitemaps
- Handling large websites and scalability issues
- Analyzing and making sense of crawl data
The role of XML sitemaps in crawling:
XML sitemaps help search engine crawlers find the URLs on a website that should be crawled and indexed. They do this by giving an organized list of the URLs that should be crawled and indexed.
Let's look at what XML sitemaps do and how to use them most effectively:
- How to make XML sitemaps
How to make XML sitemaps:
Follow these steps to make an XML sitemap:
- Identify important pages
- Use XML sitemap generators
- Validate and submit
Identify important pages:
You need to tell search engines which pages you want them to crawl and index. This is usually your main content, most important topic pages, and landing sites.
Use XML sitemap generators:
You can find XML sitemap makers as stand-alone tools or as parts of crawling tools online. These tools make XML sitemaps by looking at your website and pulling out the URLs of your chosen pages.
Validate and submit:
Once made, you can use tools like Google Search Console's Sitemap report or third-party validators to check your XML sitemap. Fix any mistakes or problems before you send the sitemap to search engines through their website tools.
XML sitemaps are sent to search engines:
Follow these general steps to send your XML file to a search engine:
- Register and prove your website
- Find the part for submitting the sitemap
- Submit your XML sitemap
Register and prove your website:
Sign up for the webmaster tools of each search engine (like Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools) and prove that your website belongs to you.
Find the part for submitting the sitemap:
Find where to send or add a sitemap in the webmaster tools panel. The interface of each search engine is different, but most have a part for sitemap upload.
Submit your XML sitemap:
Fill in the space with the URL of your XML sitemap. The search engine will then get the sitemap and use it as a guide when crawling and analyzing your website.
Updating and improving XML sitemaps:
Consider the following tips to make sure your XML sitemap stays useful and up-to-date:
- Update your XML sitemap often
- Prioritize important URLs
- Include canonical URLs
- Use separate sitemaps for different material types
Update your XML sitemap often:
If you add or remove pages from your website, you should change your XML sitemap to reflect the new layout and content.
Prioritize important URLs:
Put important URLs often changed at the top of your XML sitemap. This makes it easier for search engines to figure out how important those pages are and give them more attention when crawling and searching.
Include canonical URLs:
Add the canonical URLs to your XML sitemap to show which versions of duplicate or related material you prefer. This lets search engines know which page is the main one to index.
Use separate sitemaps for different material types:
If your website has a different content, like blog posts, product pages, or news stories, you might want to make separate XML sitemaps for each group. This makes it easier for search engines to crawl and store certain material.
Handling large websites and scalability issues:
Large websites with tens of thousands or millions of pages can be hard to crawl. Consider using the following methods to improve crawling speed and scalability:
- Crawl budget optimization should be done
- Use best practices for page numbers
- Use flexible menus that can be searched
- Keep an eye on crawl depth
Crawl budget optimization should be done:
Large websites usually have a limited budget for crawling. Make crawling important pages a top priority by better internal links, making pages run faster, and fixing crawl errors.
Use best practices for page numbers:
If your website has information broken up into pages, use best practices for paging, such as rel="next" and rel="prev" tags, to help search engine crawlers find their way through the pages in order. This ensures that all important information is indexed and crawling doesn't waste time.
Use flexible menus that can be searched:
Ensure your website's faceted menu (filters, sorting choices, etc.) is set up well for SEO. Use URL parameters or AJAX-based methods to make customized navigation that can be indexed. This lets search engines crawl your site and determine the different filtering options.
Keep an eye on crawl depth:
Crawl depth is the number of clicks from the home page to a certain page. Watch the crawl level of important pages and ensure they are in a good range. If you need to, you can change your website's layout and links to make it easier for search engine crawlers to get around.
Analyzing and making sense of crawl data:
Crawl data provides useful information about your website's crawling and search trends. By analyzing and understanding this data, SEO changes can be found that can be put into action.
Think about the following methods:
- Find crawl patterns and trends
- Get information to make SEO improvements
- Leverage crawl data for content optimization
- Check how well crawling works
Find crawl patterns and trends:
Look at how often and when search engines crawl websites to find patterns and trends. This information can help you figure out when and how often crawlers check your site, so you can change your content in the best way possible and make sure it's as visible as possible during crawl sessions.
Get information to make SEO improvements:
Dig deeper into crawl data to find pages that crawled a lot, pages that crawled rarely or not, and possible crawl problems like broken links or redirects. Use this information to set SEO priorities, improve your site's layout, and fix any problems with crawling or searching.
Leverage crawl data for content optimization:
Analyze the text content pulled out by crawling to find places where keywords are used, content holes, and improvement opportunities. Use this information to improve on-page SEO, target keywords better, and ensure the content matches users' wants.
Check how well crawling works:
Keep track of crawl data like crawl depth, crawl regularity, and the time search engine bots spend on your website. Find any oddities or problems related to crawling or tracking, and take the right steps to fix them.
Section 6: Best Ways to Crawl Effectively
- The architecture of a website is important for crawling
- Optimizing robots.txt file for crawling
- Crawlability and mobile optimization
The architecture of a website is important for crawling:
Crawling and tracking by search engine bots are made easier by website design. A well-designed, easy-to-crawl layout can improve a website's search engine exposure and user experience.
Think about these best practices:
- The structure that makes sense and is logical
- Flat site structure
- Internal linking strategies
- XML sitemaps as a supplement
The structure that makes sense and is logical:
Set up your website's pages in a way that makes sense and follows a hierarchy. Make categories, subcategories, and clear ways for access to help users and search engine crawlers understand how different pages relate to each other.
Flat site structure:
Aim for a simple site layout where important pages are easy to access from the homepage with just a few clicks. Reduce the number of subfolders or files you don't need, as too much depth can slow down crawling.
Internal linking strategies:
Use strong internal linking to connect pages that belong together and show search engine bots where to go. Include relevant reference text that describes the linked page and helps people understand it and search engines find it.
XML sitemaps as a supplement:
Even though a well-structured website shouldn't need XML sitemaps to be crawlable, adding them can help search engine crawlers understand the site better. Submit an exact and up-to-date XML file to help index and crawl your website.
Optimizing robots.txt file for crawling:
The robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers what parts of your website to look at and what to skip.
Optimize your robots.txt file for crawling and ranking to work well:
- Figure out the point
- Don't block important pages
- Don't let in copy or useless content
- Use the robots.txt file to test
Figure out the point:
Find out what the robots.txt file is for and how it is written. It lets you control how crawlers can get into certain parts of your website or sites.
Don't block important pages:
Ensure your robots.txt file doesn't block access to important pages or parts by accident. Review and test the file carefully to make sure there are no unintended limits that could stop crawling and searching from working.
Don't let in copy or useless content:
Use the "Disallow" directive to stop search engine bots from seeing similar or useless content that doesn't help your website's SEO. This lets bots pay attention to pages that are useful and different.
Use the robots.txt file to test:
Use the robots.txt testing tools found in search engine website tools or on third-party sites to confirm and test how well your file works. This helps make sure that crawlers go to the right pages and stay away from places that aren't needed.
Crawlability and mobile optimization:
As mobile-first search becomes the rule, ensuring crawlability works well on mobile devices is important. User experience and search engine crawling and ranking are both impacted by mobile optimization.
Think about the following things:
- Responsive design
- Mobile-friendly design considerations
- Check if mobiles can be crawled
- Mobile XML sitemap
Responsive design:
Use a flexible web design to ensure your website looks good on all screens and devices. This method makes the experience on PC and mobile apps the same and easy to use.
Mobile-friendly design considerations:
Use easy-to-read fonts, buttons and links with the right size and clear access to make your website mobile-friendly. Make sure that your website opens fast on mobile devices. Pages that take a long time to load can hurt the user experience and the crawling efficiency.
Check if mobiles can be crawled:
Use search engines' mobile-friendly testing tools to see how well your website works on mobile devices. These tools look at how flexible a mobile site is, how the viewport is set up, and any mobile-specific problems that could affect crawling and ranking.
Mobile XML sitemap:
Make a different XML sitemap for your mobile pages, so search engine crawlers can easily find and process your mobile-optimized content. Send this sitemap to search engines to make crawling and indexing your mobile pages easier.
Section 7: Checking and keeping up with things
- Crawling behaviour should be observed frequently
- Taking care of crawling mistakes and redirects
- For best crawling, maintain your website regularly
Crawling behaviour should be observed frequently:
Continuous tracking of search engine crawling behaviour is essential to ensure that your website is being crawled and searched effectively. Check your site regularly for any strange things or problems that could affect its exposure.
Think about the following things:
- Utilize server logs for insights
- Watch for errors and warnings from crawlers
Utilize server logs for insights:
Look at the server logs to find out what search engine bots are doing on your site. Keep an eye on the number of crawls, the crawl requests, and how the crawl requests are spread across different pages to find trends or possible crawling problems.
Watch for errors and warnings from crawlers:
Crawl error reports in search engine webmaster tools should be closely watched. Find and fix any crawl failures or warnings immediately to ensure that search engine crawlers can get to your pages and index them without problems.
Taking care of crawling mistakes and redirects:
Crawl mistakes and bad links can slow the crawling and indexing process, making it harder for people to find your site in search results.
Use the following methods to handle crawl failures and redirects successfully:
- How to find crawl mistakes and fix them
- Using the right redirects
How to find crawl mistakes and fix them:
Review the crawl error reports in the search engine webmaster tools regularly to see if any pages aren't being searched because of mistakes. Look into and fix these mistakes, such as broken links, server failures, or pages that can't be reached, so crawling works well.
Using the right redirects:
Use 301 redirects to send old or broken URLs to pages on your website that are useful and work. This ensures search engine crawlers can follow the reroute and update their records.
For best crawling, maintain your website regularly.
You must keep your website in good shape for crawling and ranking to work well. Maintenance ensures that your website is always available, works well, and gives users a good experience.
Think about the following ways to do maintenance:
- Getting rid of bad links and old information
- Checking the speed and performance of a website
Getting rid of bad links and old information:
Check your website every so often to find pages that aren't very good or are out of date. Remove or update them to improve the quality of the website as a whole and make crawling more effective.
Checking the speed and performance of a website:
Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to regularly check your website's speed and performance. To improve crawling and the user experience, optimize images, minify CSS and JavaScript, use browser caching, and fix any speed problems.
Conclusion:
Crawling is an important part of technical SEO because it helps with crawling, search engine exposure, and traffic from search engines and other sources. When website owners and SEO workers know the basics of crawling, the process, typical problems, and advanced methods, they can improve their sites for crawling and indexing.
By using crawling tools, putting best practices into place, and doing regular monitoring and upkeep, you can increase the visibility of your website, improve its search results, and have long-term SEO success. Remember that ongoing crawling and repair are important to stay on top of the constantly changing world of technical SEO.
Questions that are often asked (FAQ):
Q: In technical SEO, what is crawling?
A: In technical SEO, crawling is the process of search engine bots going through web pages in a planned way to find, get, and study content for indexing.
Why is crawling important for SEO?
A: It's important for SEO to crawl. It lets search engines find and process web pages, making them suitable to appear in search results and driving natural website traffic.
How do technical SEO web spiders work?
A: Web crawlers, also called bots or spiders, follow links from one web page to the next, getting HTML text, extracting links, and saving data to make an index of the web.
What are the different types of bots used in technical SEO?
A: In technical SEO, we meet two main types of crawlers: search engine crawlers (e.g., Googlebot, Bingbot) deployed by search engines and custom crawlers made by website owners or SEO professionals for specific reasons.
What's the point of crawling when it comes to search engine indexing?
A: Crawling is an important part of search engine indexing because it helps search engines understand the structure, content, and links between web pages. This helps users get correct and useful search results.
