Ultimate Guide to Website Crawling and Indexing

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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Google Search Console 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. Screaming Frog SEO
Spider 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. Ahrefs and SEMrush 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.
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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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