Your website doesn’t just magically surface on the search engine results. There is an entire mechanism behind it.
Website crawl can be a bewildering topic. Basically, web crawlers are responsible for displaying content around the web.
These crawlers go from one link to another on pages to streamline the browsing experience of the user.
As they are fundamental for every SEO strategy, it is important to understand the concept of website crawl.
To know how often does Google crawl a website and contemplate the process, read this blog.
Read More: SEO Impressions: Uncovering the Significant GSC Metric
What is Website Crawling?
A web crawler is a bot that visits and analyzes web pages automatically to comprehend their content.
They go by several names, such as:
- Spider Crawler
- Googlebot
- Bingbot
- Baiduspider
The fact that these bots crawl the Internet gave rise to the nickname spider.
Crawlers are used by search engines to find and classify web pages. Then, in response to user queries, present the ones they think are best.
They help in improving a website and give you insights on other websites as well. As a result, the website crawl on the SERPs.
The Mechanism of Web Crawling
A web crawler operates by finding URLs and downloading the content of pages.
During this process, they may give the content to the search engine index, which also extracts links to other websites.
The links that play a part in website crawl are:
New URLs: The search engine is not familiar with these.
Known URLs: The crawlers visit them a couple of times to find out if the page has been modified. Some provide precise instructions and have been updated. They should be recrawled and reindexed, maybe using an XML sitemap with a time stamp for the date on which it was updated.
Then, known links provide clear instructions and have not been altered.
Inaccessible URLs: these should not be followed, such as those protected by a nofollow robots tag or those that are behind a log-in form.
Disallowed URLs: These include URLs that the robots.txt file blocks and prevents search engine bots from crawling.
Every permitted URL goes into the crawl queue, a list of pages that the crawlers view.
The bots used by the majority of well-known search engines utilize particular algorithms to decide website crawl. Thus, not every crawl is the same.
Bingbot, DuckDuckBot, Yandex Bot, Yahoo Slurp, and Googlebot, all of these work differently.
Search engine crawlers such as Googlebot and Bingbot differ slightly from publicly accessible crawlers.
However, they function similarly, accessing a website and reading it like a search engine crawler.
Ideally, Google displays your page in search results based on how well it answers a user’s question. Therefore, the process of website crawl depends on various factors.
How Often Does Google Crawl a Website?
Depending on various factors, a website crawl happens every four to forty days.
Google has a large workload when it comes to crawling. If your website is active, it may hunt you before your competitors.
Google doesn’t choose at random when to visit your website. There are several variables that can affect the frequency of the website crawl.
Let’s examine some of the major variables that affect how frequently Googlebot visits a website:
Popularity of the Website: The website crawls often if it receives more engagement. Because of the importance of these websites, Google makes an effort to maintain their information current in search results.
Crawlability: A website’s crawl frequency is influenced by how simple it is for Googlebot to crawl. Googlebot finds and navigates through pages more easily on well-structured websites with clean code, appropriate internal linking, and XML sitemaps, which leads to more frequent scans.
Site Updates: Frequent website crawl process occur for websites that regularly post new and pertinent material. Googlebot values sites that are updated often and want to ensure consumers can obtain the most recent data.
Inbound Links: Google may determine that a website is significant and deserves more frequent indexing if it has high-quality inbound links from other reliable websites. These links can affect website crawl frequency and serve as an approval for trusting the site.
Server Performance: The website crawl frequency is influenced by the functionality and dependability of a website’s server. Server issues impact a website’s capacity for Googlebot to visit and crawl.
XML Sitemap: An XML sitemap makes it easier for Googlebot to navigate a website’s structure and find newly added or updated content. A sitemap works in the favour of website crawl frequency.
These elements interact and impact one another to influence the website crawl system.
If the last website crawl happened before forty days, you should check for crawl errors.
In the next section of our website crawl guide, we will discuss what matters to the crawlers.
Website Crawl: 8 Steps to Facilitate the Process
Here are the steps to help crawlers run the website crawl process smoothly:
1. Detect Usability Issues
The user experience matters to Google Bots just as much as it does to humans.
You can find out whether any of your URLs are difficult or impossible to reach owing to various issues by using the usability area of Google Search Console.
These mistakes will affect “how often does Google crawl a website.”
2. Maintain a Great Interlinking Structure
As long as it’s relevant, you should internally link from one page to another on your website to build a web of links.
If you are concerned about “how often does Google crawl a website,” paying attention to this factor will help.
Produce content centered around several themes that connect with each other. Moreover, don’t leave any stone unturned to detect opportunities for internal links.
3. Obtain High-quality Backlinks
A link from another website that indicates to search engines that your website has some authority is known as a backlink.
When other people share your content, search engines will take note and may begin to crawl your website.
The better the link, the more valuable it is. Spread your tactics and look for low-hanging fruit from nearby, pertinent sources.
Even though a backlink from a well-known website is good to have, smaller websites can occasionally be even more relevant and just as beneficial.
To know more about backlinks, read our blog on How to Get Top Backlinks for Your Website: The Ultimate Guide.
4. Examine the Robots.txt File
The robots.txt file is another place to check if there is a crawling issue.
To clear it up, you should delete the pages you do not want Google spiders to crawl from your robots.txt file.
5. Put a Sitemap on the Site
A sitemap makes it easier for search engines to navigate your website by outlining its pages.
Bots read the sitemap, which informs Google of how frequently you update your site. Due to that, it is important to figure out how often does Google crawl a website.
A sitemap can assist the bots in discovering your website, but Google itself states that it does not ensure indexing.
6. Make a Manual Indexing Request
You have two options in Search Console: you may manually request indexing for certain pages or submit your sitemap to Google and ask them to crawl and index your website using bots.
Although there is no assurance that Google will crawl and index your page, doing this helps notify them of any recent modifications you have made to your website.
Thus, to be on the safe side, you can use this step for a website crawl.
7. Check the Technical SEO Aspects
Taking care of the technical details in your content makes it easier for search engines to index your website. Use short URLs, write clear and succinct titles, and speed up page loads to make your website easier for Google to crawl.
Learn More: The Ultimate Guide to Comprehend Average Position in Google Search Console
8. Modify Outdated Content
Getting ranked higher in search results shouldn’t be your main objective. Instead, pay attention to traffic and conversions.
Remember that if something changes on your website, Google crawls it. Google will index your web pages more frequently if you update your outdated information.
The more often Google crawls your website, the more likely it is that once it is published, search results will include your material.
Articles that have recently been published tend to get more clicks.
Particularly when reading about subjects like technology, healthcare, or SEO that are always evolving.
By updating your material, you can give it a more recent posting date, which will increase the likelihood that users will click through to your website. Naturally, it will help the website crawl.
You may notice an increase in your rank after implementing these adjustments.
You can estimate the time it will take Google to index your new webpage or site based on its popularity, traffic, and content. But, you can’t say how often does Google crawl a website.
Using GSC for Website Crawl Report
Use the Crawl Stats report, which has a wealth of helpful information on Google crawling, to gain a deeper understanding of the general activities of Google crawling your website.
These are the steps to get the information:
- Open the Google Search Console and log in.
- Choose the property that you need to analyze.
- Go to the Settings menu on the left.
- On the Property Settings screen, select the Crawl Stats option.
This report lets you see how Google has visited your website over the past ninety days.
Read More: How to Use Google Search Console to Conduct an SEO Audit
FAQs
Why the search engine hasn’t crawled my newly launched website?
It may take some time for Google to find your website if it is extremely fresh. By immediately sending your URL to Google through Google Search Console, you can speed up this procedure.
What is a website crawl budget?
The amount of pages that Googlebot can and wants to crawl is referred to as the crawl budget. Adding new pages and removing broken links and redirection may help you optimize your crawl budget.
Will my site get crawled more often if I have a larger crawl budget?
It may help sometimes. Google can crawl more pages with a larger crawl budget, but this does not guarantee that it will happen more frequently.
In Conclusion
Simply put, a crawler visits websites and makes content requests just like a browser.
Following that, the content that needs to be saved is actually selected via an indexing procedure.
Any text that is visible on the website is typically the content that is indexed, and that’s how the website crawl works.
To resolve the errors that stop your website from crawling, reach out to The Dreams Agency.