What is Crawlability?
Crawlability refers to the ability of a website or web page to be discovered and indexed by search engine bots or crawlers.
When a search engine crawler visits a website, it examines the website's content, structure, and other factors to determine how relevant and useful it is to users.
If a website or web page is not crawlable, search engines may not be able to find it or index its content, which can make it difficult for users to find the page through search queries.
Ensuring that a website is easily crawlable is an important part of search engine optimization, as it can help to improve the site's visibility and ranking in search results.
What’s the difference between crawlability and indexability?
Crawlability and indexability are both important concepts in search engine optimization, but they refer to different aspects of a website's relationship with search engines.
Crawlability refers to a search engine's ability to discover and access a website's pages. When a search engine bot or crawler visits a website, it analyzes the website's structure, content, and other factors to determine how relevant and useful it is to users.
A website that is easily crawlable is more likely to be discovered and indexed by search engines, which can lead to better search rankings and more traffic.
Indexability, on the other hand, refers to a search engine's ability to store and display a website's pages in search results.
After a website has been crawled, the search engine will analyze the content of each page and determine whether it is relevant and useful to users.
If the page is deemed useful, it will be indexed and stored in the search engine's database, where it can be displayed in response to relevant search queries.
Both crawlability and indexability are important for SEO success, a website that is difficult to crawl or not indexed properly may not appear in search results, even if it has valuable content.
Why is crawlability important?
Crawlability is important because it directly affects a website's visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
When a search engine crawler visits a website, it analyzes the site's content and structure to determine its relevance and value to users.
If a website is not easily crawlable, search engines may not be able to discover and index all of its content, which can result in lower rankings and reduced visibility in SERPs.
This, in turn, can lead to fewer website visitors and less traffic, which can negatively impact a website's performance and success.
By improving a website's crawlability, site owners can increase the chances of their site being discovered and ranked by search engines, which can ultimately lead to more traffic, better user engagement, and improved business results.
How does crawlability affect SEO?
Crawlability can directly impact a website's SEO performance. When a search engine crawler visits a website, it examines the site's content, structure, and other factors to determine its relevance and usefulness to users.
If a website is not easily crawlable, search engines may not be able to find and index all of its pages, which can negatively impact its SEO performance.
Improving a website's crawlability can lead to better search engine visibility and higher rankings in search results.
By ensuring that a website is easily discoverable, contains followable links, and is free of access restrictions, website owners can improve their website's crawlability and increase the likelihood that their website's pages will be discovered, indexed, and displayed in search engine results pages.
What affects a website’s crawlability?
There are many factors that can affect a website's crawlability, some of which include:
Site architecture
The structure and organization of a website can greatly impact its crawlability. A well-designed site architecture will typically have a clear hierarchy of pages and categories, with each page being easily discoverable through internal links.
Page discoverability
Search engine crawlers rely on links to navigate a website and discover its pages. If a webpage is not easily discoverable through internal links or external backlinks, search engines may not be able to find and crawl it.
Nofollow links
Nofollow links are hyperlinks that contain the rel="nofollow" attribute. When a search engine crawler encounters a nofollow link, it will not follow the link while crawling the page.
This can impact a website's crawlability, if some important pages are only accessible through nofollow links may not be indexed by search engines.
Robots.txt file
The robots.txt file is a text file that is placed in the root directory of a website and contains instructions for search engine crawlers.
If a website owner has restricted certain pages or directories using the robots.txt file, search engine crawlers may not be able to access those pages, which can impact crawlability.
Access Restrictions
Access restrictions such as login requirements, CAPTCHAs, or IP blocking can prevent search engine crawlers from accessing a website's pages, which can negatively impact crawlability.
It's important to ensure that search engine crawlers are able to access all of a website's pages in order to properly crawl and index the site.
By understanding and addressing these factors, website owners can improve their site's crawlability, which can ultimately lead to better visibility and higher rankings in search engine result pages.
How to find crawlability issues on your website?
There are several tools and techniques that website owners can use to identify crawlability issues on their website, including:
Google Search Console
It is a free tool provided by Google that allows website owners to monitor and analyze their website's performance in search results.
Within Search Console, the "Coverage" report provides detailed information about crawling and indexing issues that may be affecting a website's performance.
Crawling tools
There are many crawling tools available that can scan a website and identify technical issues that may be impacting its crawlability.
Some popular crawling tools include Screaming Frog, Netpeak Spider, Ahrefs Site Audit, and SEMrush Site Audit.
Site architecture analysis
Analyzing a website's architecture and internal linking structure can help identify crawlability issues such as orphaned pages, broken links, and other technical issues.
Mapping tools such as Slickplan or Draw.io can help visualize the structure of a website and identify any issues.
Content analysis
Analyzing a website's content can help identify issues such as duplicate content, thin content, and keyword stuffing, which can negatively impact crawlability. Tools like Copyscape and Siteliner can help identify duplicate content issues.
By using these tools and techniques, website owners can identify crawlability issues on their website and take steps to address them, which can ultimately lead to improved search engine rankings and increased visibility in search results.
How to make a website easier to crawl?
Making a website easy to crawl and get index is an important aspect of SEO. Here are some steps that website owners can take to improve their website's crawlability and indexability:
Create a sitemap: A sitemap is a file that lists all of the pages on a website. Submitting a sitemap to Google and other search engines can help ensure that all pages are crawlable and indexable.
Optimize site architecture: A well-designed site architecture with clear navigation and a logical hierarchy can make it easier for search engine crawlers to find and index all of a website's pages.
Use internal linking: Internal links can help search engine crawlers navigate a website and find all of its pages. Including relevant internal links on each page can improve crawlability.
Monitor crawl errors: Regularly monitoring crawl errors using tools like Google Search Console can help identify and address issues that may be impacting a website's crawlability.
By taking these steps to improve crawlability, website owners can increase the likelihood that their website's pages will be discovered, indexed, and displayed in search engine result pages.
Can a webpage be indexed in Google without crawling?
No, a webpage cannot be indexed in Google without being crawled first. In order for a webpage to appear in Google's search results, Google's web crawler (also known as Googlebot) must first discover and crawl the page.
However, in rare situations, Google has the ability to include a web page's URL in its search results without actually crawling the page, although this doesn't happen often.
In such cases, Google uses the text of the URL and any anchor text to understand what the page is about. However, the page's description won't be shown in the search results.
Conclusion
When Googlebot crawls a webpage, it analyzes the page's content, structure, and other factors to determine its relevance and usefulness to users.
If the page is deemed useful, it will be indexed and stored in Google's database, where it can be displayed in response to relevant search queries.
By optimizing a website's crawlability and ensuring that all important pages are easily discoverable by search engine crawlers, website owners can increase the chances of their pages being indexed and appearing in Google's search results.