Search engines serve as the primary gateway to readily accessible information, yet their lesser-known companions, web crawlers, play an indispensable role in uncovering and aggregating content across the web. Furthermore, they are a cornerstone of effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.Search engines do not possess an innate knowledge of all the websites that exist on the internet. These programs must crawl and index websites before they can deliver the appropriate pages based on keywords and phrases, which are the terms people use to locate a useful webpage.Imagine this process as akin to shopping at a new grocery store.Before selecting the items you need, you must traverse the aisles and examine the available products.Similarly, search engines utilize web crawler programs to assist them in navigating the internet to locate pages before storing that data for future searches.This metaphor also resonates with the way crawlers navigate from link to link on webpages.One cannot see what lies behind a can of soup on a grocery store shelf until it is lifted from its position. Search engine crawlers also require a starting point—a link—before they can discover the next page and the subsequent link. [Image: Screenshot of Link Paths for Web Crawlers Full width]Search engines navigate sites by traversing the links present on pages. However, for a new website without interlinked pages, you can prompt search engines to perform a website crawl by submitting your URL to Google Search Console.Discover more about verifying if your site is crawlable and indexable in our video! [YouTube video player]Crawlers act as pioneers in uncharted territories.They are perpetually seeking discoverable links on pages, noting them down on their map once they understand their characteristics. Nonetheless, website crawlers can only sift through public pages on websites, with the inaccessible private pages referred to as the “dark web.”While on a page, web crawlers gather information such as the content and meta tags. Subsequently, these crawlers store the pages in the index, allowing Google’s algorithm to sort them based on the contained words for later retrieval and ranking.What are some examples of web crawlers?Major search engines all have their own web crawler, with larger engines employing multiple crawlers with specialized functions.For instance, Google has its primary crawler, Googlebot, which covers both mobile and desktop crawling. Yet, there are several additional bots for Google, such as Googlebot Images, Googlebot Videos, Googlebot News, and AdsBot.Here are a few other web crawlers you might encounter:
DuckDuckBot for DuckDuckGo
Yandex Bot for Yandex
Baiduspider for Baidu
Yahoo! Slurp for Yahoo!
Bing also features a standard web crawler called Bingbot, along with more specific bots like MSNBot-Media and BingPreview. Its former primary crawler, MSNBot, has since shifted its focus to standard crawling and now handles only minor website crawl tasks.SEO—enhancing your site for improved rankings—demands that pages are accessible and legible for web crawlers. Crawlability is the first step in how search engines identify your pages, while regular crawling aids in displaying updates and ensuring content freshness. As crawling extends beyond the outset of your SEO campaign, understanding web crawler behavior can be a proactive approach to securing a presence in search results and enhancing user experience.Continue reading to delve into the relationship between web crawlers and SEO.Crawl Budget ManagementContinuous web crawling offers your newly published pages the opportunity to appear in search engine results pages (SERPs). Nonetheless, you are not allotted an unlimited crawling capacity from Google and most other search engines.Google has a crawl budget that guides its bots in determining:
Frequency of crawling
Pages to scan
Acceptable server pressure levels
The existence of a crawl budget is beneficial, as it prevents crawler and visitor activity from overloading your site.To maintain smooth site operation, you can adjust web crawling through crawl rate limits and crawl demand.The crawl rate limit monitors site fetching to prevent load speed issues or errors. You can modify it in Google Search Console if experiencing issues with Googlebot.The crawl demand reflects the level of interest Google and its users have in your website. Therefore, if you do not have a substantial following, Googlebot will not crawl your site as frequently as more popular sites.Obstacles for Web CrawlersThere are several methods to purposefully block web crawlers from accessing certain pages on your site. Not all pages on your site should be ranked in the SERPs, and these crawler barriers can shield sensitive, redundant, or irrelevant pages from appearing for specific keywords.The first barrier is the noindex meta tag, which prevents search engines from indexing and ranking a particular page. It is typically advisable to apply noindex to admin pages, thank you pages, and internal search results.Another crawler barrier is the robots.txt file. Although not as definitive, as crawlers can choose to ignore your robots.txt files, it is a useful tool for managing your crawl budget.With the crawling basics covered, you should now have a clearer understanding of what a web crawler is. Search engine crawlers are formidable tools for discovering and recording website pages.This is a fundamental component of your SEO strategy, and an SEO firm can fill in the blanks to provide your business with a robust campaign to increase traffic, revenue, and rankings in SERPs.Ranked as the #1 SEO firm globally, WebFX is poised to deliver tangible results for your business. With clients from various industries, we have extensive experience. Moreover, our clients are delighted with their partnership with us—read their over 1,100 testimonials to learn more.Are you prepared to discuss our SEO services with an expert?Contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 today—let us know how we can assist you.
