Big Jaw
If you want to boost your small or medium business’s online presence, you need to be familiar with website crawling and indexing. These processes are critical to the ability of search engines like Google to rank content on the Internet.
Now, these processes might sound too technical, but don’t worry. This article will explain how these processes work, including the impacts of crawling in SEO, so that search engines can discover your website.
What is website crawling?
Crawling in SEO refers to how search engines explore Internet content using bots, also called “crawlers” and spiders.” Think of these as digital robots roaming the Internet, scouring for links, content, and other resources to add to search engines’ ever-growing databases.
Here’s how it works: crawlers come to “read” or “scan” your page every time you publish a new webpage or make changes to your website. This process typically starts from a list of known pages, following links on those pages to discover new ones. Through crawling, search engines understand your site’s structure, content, and relevance to user queries.
How does indexing work?
After crawling your site, search engines process the content on each page and store it in their database. They then analyze, categorize, and index the information to make it easily retrievable for users performing a relevant search.
Indexing refers to storing and organizing the information discovered by crawlers. If your website is not indexed correctly or at all, it won’t show up in search results, meaning potential customers won’t find you through search engines.
Why do website crawling and indexing matter?
Think of your website as your business’s storefront on the Internet. Crawling ensures that your target customers can see and access your site so it can effectively drive traffic and increase conversions for your business.
Additionally, keeping your site easy to index makes simplifies how search engines to understand your content. This not only ensures your content is likely to appear on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for related queries, but it also helps your audience see your site before they do your competitors’.
How do you make your site crawlable and indexable?
Improving your site’s crawlability and indexability doesn’t have to be complex. Here are practical steps to add to your SEO strategy:
Optimize your website’s structure
A clear and logical website structure makes it easier for crawlers to navigate and helps search engines understand your content better. When structuring your site, make sure your pages are connected to guide visitors and bots seamlessly from one section to another.
For instance, you can implement a “silo structure,” organizing your content category. This structure links related pages to one another, creating groups of related content that search engines can efficiently process.
Create and submit a sitemap
Imagine a sitemap as a roadmap for your website. It lists all the pages on your site and helps search engine crawlers discover and index your content. Generate a sitemap with help from various tools, including Screaming Frog and SEMrush. If you’re a WordPress user, you can use Yoast SEO or the Google XML Sitemaps plugin.
After generating a sitemap, you should submit it through Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Both tools have a “Sitemaps” section where you can paste your sitemap URL.
Control crawling with robots.txt
Not all pages on your website should be indexed, and that’s okay. Good examples include pages with duplicate content, private or sensitive information, or those that you want to remain hidden from search engines.
A robots.txt file informs search engines which web pages or sections they should or shouldn’t crawl. Besides increasing the efficiency of crawlers, it also helps you avoid issues that can result in lower rankings and legal trouble.
Keep your content fresh and up-to-date
Search engines prioritize websites with valuable, relevant, and updated content. Regularly publishing new content tells search engines that your website is active and should be crawled frequently.
Additionally, keeping your site updated makes it more helpful to users, making it more likely to appear to your target audience during their search. This can help boost your website’s ability to generate leads for your business.
What tools can help you?
Ensuring that your website is being properly crawled and indexed requires ongoing monitoring. Thankfully, you don’t have to do this manually. Various website indexing tools can help you check and optimize your site’s crawlability and index status. Here are some you should consider:
Several search engines are out today, but Google undoubtedly dominates the market. Google Search Console gives you a picture of how Google views your site, helps you monitor crawl errors, and, as mentioned above, allows you to submit your sitemap.
This popular tool simulates how search engines crawl your site, identifying issues like broken links, missing meta tags, and duplicate content. By identifying these issues early, you can fix them before they pose problems for your site.
These paid tools offer advanced insights and allow you to perform crawl diagnostics, backlink analyses, site audits, and other crucial processes. They give you a detailed view of your site’s SEO health and help improve your website’s ranking potential.
Understanding website crawling and indexing is crucial to developing and implementing strategies that benefit your online presence. However, it’s worth noting that SEO is a continuous endeavor and can quickly become too technical and demanding, especially if you do it while running your business.
To solve the problem, consider working with a professional SEO company instead of optimizing your website yourself. An SEO agency has teams of SEO experts with knowledge and website indexing tools to ensure your pages are crawlable and indexable and rank high for your target keywords.
Contact a professional SEO agency to optimize your site today and watch your online presence grow.
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