Crawling
Crawling is the process where search bots discover URLs and fetch content, influenced by internal links, sitemaps, crawl budget and robots rules.
Definition
Crawling is how search engines discover URLs and fetch content to build candidates for indexing. It’s driven by internal linking, sitemaps, server responsiveness, and crawl budget constraints.
Why it matters
- Crawling is a prerequisite for indexing and ranking
- Poor crawling (slow/error-prone) reduces site-wide indexing efficiency
- Large sites must manage crawl budget and avoid crawl traps
How to implement
- Use strong internal links and sitemaps for discovery
- Reduce 4xx/5xx and redirect chains to avoid wasted crawl
- Prevent infinite parameter/faceted pages that create crawl traps
Related
Tools
FAQ
Common questions about this term.