{"id":5280,"date":"2023-02-02T08:43:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T13:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keyword.com\/?page_id=5280"},"modified":"2023-08-08T09:19:15","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T14:19:15","slug":"crawling","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/keyword.com\/seo-wiki\/crawling\/","title":{"rendered":"How Website Crawling Works"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What is Crawling in SEO?\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n

Crawling is how search engines discover and index web pages. In other words, it is how search engines ‘know’ what web pages exist, so they can display the most relevant answers in SERPs when someone searches for particular information.\u00a0<\/span>This term is broad, and can also be used when referring to crawl \u201cbudget”, crawl “depth”, crawl \u201cerror\u201d and more.<\/p>\n

Essentially, it all comes down to the processing of a particular URL. Crawling happens when a website is searched (crawled) by a bot\/s. These bots analyze the code and content on a specific page, and gather information about the intent of your content. Crawlers (or bots) will also view internal and external links during the collection process, and index these pages.<\/p>\n

While Google allocates crawl budgets to every URL, the amount you get is determined by a handful of things: the importance of a webpage according to its trust signals, the page\u2019s link structure, etc.<\/p>\n

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Types of Crawling\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Google performs two types of crawling:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. Discovery<\/b>: To find new content on your website<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Refresh<\/b>: To find updated information in already-indexed content\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    Why Is Crawling Important for SEO?\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

    Crawling ensures that people can find your website\u2019s content in search results \u2014 which sets the premise for earning organic traffic and ranking high in the SERPs. In other words, without being crawled, your website cannot be indexed properly, meaning your content cannot rank well (if at all). So, crawling is the first step to even appearing online.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Crawling also helps search engines provide relevant search results for specific queries \u2014 improving SERP quality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    As search bots scan different web pages, they recognize the meaning and context behind the content. With these details, search engines can provide results that match search intent for different keywords or phrases.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Crawling also allows search engines to track changes to websites, such as new content, permissions, redirects, and metadata. With this data, search engines quickly adjust the SERPs to reflect up-to-date information on different web pages. It ensures that users find the most accurate and up-to-date information for different queries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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    How Do Search Engines Crawl Websites?\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

    First, the crawlers download your website\u2019s robot.txt file. The robot.txt file contains information about which web pages should or should not be crawled on your site.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Next, the crawlers fetch a few pages from your website and follow the internal links on these pages to discover other content. The crawlers add all of the discovered content to their database, where they can retrieve relevant URLs whenever someone searches for specific information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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    How to Optimize Your Website for Crawling\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

    There are several ways to ensure search engine bots crawl your website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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    1. Ensure That Your Website Has a Well-Constructed and Updated Sitemap<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

    An XML sitemap is like a directory with information about the different content pages on your website. It helps search engines quickly find and crawl the pages on your website. As you make updates to your website, re-submit your sitemap to the search engines for indexing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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    2. Make Your Content Visible to Crawl Bots<\/span><\/h3>\n

    Any content that is blocked by no-index tags, robots.txt files, or other protective measures won\u2019t be crawled. Ensure that the search engine bots can view all the content assets in your web pages \u2014 images, videos, GIFs, and the like.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    3. Focus On Page Speed and Technical Optimization.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

    The faster your website loads, the faster search engines can crawl and index its content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n