TL;DR
In this article, we will delve into what crawling is, why it matters, and how you can optimise your website for better crawling performance.
Crawling is a fundamental aspect of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) that significantly impacts how your website is discovered and ranked by search engines.
Understanding the intricacies of crawling can enhance your site’s visibility and ultimately drive more traffic.
What is crawling?
Crawling refers to the process by which search engines like Google use automated bots, often called crawlers or spiders, to systematically browse the web. These bots visit web pages, read their content, and follow links to discover additional pages.
The information gathered during this process is then stored in a massive database known as an index. When a user performs a search query, the search engine retrieves results from this index to provide the most relevant pages.
If your website is not being crawled effectively, it cannot be indexed, which means it won’t appear in search results. This highlights the importance of ensuring that your site is crawlable.
Why crawling matters for SEO
Enhanced discoverability
When search engines crawl your site, they collect data about your web pages, including their content, structure, and links. This information is essential for determining how your pages will appear in search engine results pages (SERPs).
If a page is not crawled, it won’t be indexed, which means it will not show up in search results at all. Therefore, effective crawling directly impacts your site’s discoverability—ensuring that potential customers can find you online.
Better search rankings
Once a page is crawled, it becomes eligible for indexing, which is the next step in the process. However, being indexed does not guarantee a high ranking; it merely allows the page to be considered for ranking.
Search engines use complex algorithms to assess the relevance and authority of each page based on various factors, including content quality and user engagement.
The more accessible and well-structured your content is for crawlers, the higher the likelihood of achieving good rankings for relevant searches.
Freshness and updates
Search engines favour fresh content; therefore, timely crawling and indexing are vital for keeping your site relevant.
If you regularly update your website with new articles or products but fail to ensure that these updates are crawled, search engines may continue to display outdated information. This can lead to a poor user experience and diminish your site’s credibility.
Crawl budget management
Every website has a crawl budget—the number of pages that search engine bots will crawl within a specific timeframe. Efficient management of this budget is essential for maximising your site’s visibility.
If a significant portion of your site’s content is low-quality or outdated, it can waste crawl budget on pages that do not contribute to your SEO goals.
By focusing on high-quality content and removing unnecessary or duplicate pages, you can optimise your crawl budget. This ensures that crawlers spend their time on valuable pages that are more likely to drive traffic and conversions.
Impact on user experience
Crawling also indirectly affects user experience. When search engines encounter issues during the crawling process—such as broken links or inaccessible pages—it can lead to a poor representation of your site in search results.
This not only affects rankings but also frustrates users who may click through to find broken or irrelevant pages.
By ensuring a smooth crawling process through proper site structure and regular maintenance, you enhance both user experience and SEO performance.
Related read: How To Find Broken Links In Ahrefs
Factors influencing crawling
Site structure
A well-organised site structure facilitates easier crawling. Ensure that important pages are linked prominently within your site’s hierarchy so that crawlers can find them quickly.
Crawl budget
Crawl budget refers to the number of pages a search engine will crawl on your site within a given timeframe. This budget varies based on factors such as site authority, speed, and overall quality.
For instance, high-traffic sites like BBC News are crawled multiple times daily due to their constantly updated content. In contrast, smaller sites may only be crawled weekly or bi-weekly.
Page load speed
Faster-loading pages are more likely to be crawled effectively. If your site has slow load times, it may hinder crawlers from visiting all your pages within their allocated budget.
Content updates
Search engines prioritise fresh content; therefore, websites that regularly update their content may experience more frequent crawls.
Best practices for optimising crawling
🕸 Create a sitemap: A sitemap provides a roadmap of your website’s structure to search engines. Submitting an XML sitemap via Google Search Console can help ensure that all important pages are crawled.
🤖 Use robots.txt wisely: The robots.txt file instructs crawlers which parts of your site they can access. Ensure this file does not inadvertently block important pages from being crawled.
🔗 Improve internal linking: Robust internal linking helps guide crawlers through your site and ensures that all valuable content is discoverable.
🔀 Reduce redirects: Minimising redirect chains can improve load times and make it easier for crawlers to access your content directly.
Crawling is an essential component of SEO that directly impacts how well your website performs in search results.
By understanding how crawling works and implementing best practices to optimise it, you increase the likelihood of better indexing and higher rankings on search engines.
