Complete Guide to Website Crawling and Indexing

What is Website Crawling

Crawling is a process initiated by Google's search engines where the Google Web Crawler, also known a GoogleBot, visits new and updated webpages on the internet. 

For the purposes of Crawling - Google classifies the webpages into 3 categories as below:

The GoogleBot visits all web pages on the internet barring the below:

What is a Google Web Crawler?

The web crawler is a program which identifies and analyzes new pages or websites to make a decision if the page or website is worth indexing.

The Web Crawler, commonly referred to as Googlebot or Spiderbot, a name which originates from the way the bot moves from one “web” page to another, takes information from a crawled page, and reports it to Google’s algorithms and servers. 

It is important to note that the term Crawling here is synonymous to the word “Read.” 

When Google crawls a web page, the bots analyze both the textual and non-textual content of the website along with the overall visual layout to decide where and how it would appear in Search results. The better the bot can understand your page, the better it can match it to people searching for results.

A web crawler is a very important program for Google as there are billions of web pages on the internet  and Google can only allocate so much computer power, or resources, for crawling. Hence Google allocates a crawl budget for each website. If Google has previously crawled your content, chances are it may not crawl it again for a while. Hence it’s imperative that you want the crawl to be successful.

For a successful crawl to happen, below are the 3 broad metrics that Spiderbots look for when evaluating a website:

Once the spiderbot analyzes a website, it will relay that information to Google servers that the website is good enough to be indexed. Indexing is another aspect on the Google algorithm which is as equally as important to crawling. 

What is Website Indexing?

Indexing is the next step of validating a page after the spider bots have crawled on it. In simple terms Indexing translates to how Google interprets what’s on the webpage. The page is analyzed for content, catalogue images and videos to get an understanding of what the page is about. This information is then stored in what is called a Google Index.

Let’s understand what Indexing is with the example of a Library.

A library holds hundreds of thousands of books, and employs a librarian who indexes these books.

An index is a ledger or a record. Each book also has a marking, called an Index. If you go to a librarian and say, “I need a book about a list of Viruses” , the librarian will consult the ledger (or computer), and tell you that you need to go bookshelf number 91 and on the 19th slot you can find a book titled “An Almanac of Viruses”.  They will also tell you that the book has number, like LB. 2395.C65

This made your search easier. Instead of you going through each bookshelf, you just ask the librarian.

This is the principle of indexing, which Google does to webpages.

What is the Importance of Google Indexing?

As Google crawls web pages, it also indexes the web pages and categorizes them based on words found on the webpage. If your web page is not indexed, it will never be shown on the search results. 

Indexing is simple, but super important.

If your blog post has the words Katy and Perry, the Google indexing machine will think it is about Katy Perry. If someone searches on Google about Katy Perry, then Google may show your website under search results. 

What is the difference between Website Crawling and Indexing?

The main difference between crawling and indexing is the activity. A crawl refers to an activity where the spiderbots read your web pages. Indexing, on the other hand, refers to an activity of listing down what the content is all about, and putting it in a position, where its visible to people who are searching for the keyword associated with the page. 

If you are operating a website, you can tell Google not to index your page. You can also tell Google not to crawl the page. 

Let us go back to the librarian example. 

If you tell the librarian not to crawl, they cannot read the contents of the book. However, they can still tell people that there is a book sitting down in a particular shelf.

If you tell the librarian that they can read it, but not index it, then they know what the book is about, but they cannot tell library users where it is. They cannot even tell them that the book exists.  

If you want traffic, you want the librarian to crawl and read your website, and you also want the librarian to tell people about your website. 

How does Google Web Crawler and Indexing help Rank a Website?

Now, putting it together, how does crawling and indexing help a website? 

One Powerful word - Traffic. 

If you allow Google to crawl your website, Google will know the content of your web pages. And if you allow Google to index your webpages, that information will be stored in its servers—and Google will point users to your webpage as it deems fit. 

Let us say that you wrote an article called “5 Best Exercises to Develop 6-Pack Abs.” 

If you let Google crawl your article, it is going to understand that your article contains steps that help a person achieve 6-pack abs.

Once this article is indexed, Google will put this information in its servers. 

Now, if someone from another part of the world opens the  search engine, and then types “how to get six-pack abs,” Google will present all articles to this user about developing six-pack abs. 

See screenshot below:  

As you can see, the user now has the option to click any of these articles and read them. If one of these articles is yours, you get a reader to visit your website. 

And if this reader visits your website, you now have an opportunity to sell something to this user. 

How to get Google to Crawl your Website?

Earlier, we mentioned something about a crawl budget. Only Google knows how many times it will crawl your website, at what time, and how many pages. 

This is why each time Google crawls your web page, you must make sure that Google is pleased enough that it will index your web page, and make a decision to present it to its users, especially at the top of the search results pages. This is called optimization, and here are some tips on how to optimize your webpage: 

As you can see from the screenshot above, this page is optimized. It is mobile friendly, and Google has already indexed it. 

List of things you need to do to Rank your Website

Now, here are some other things that you need to do to be able to rank your website. 

So far, these are the four most important aspects you need to focus on. Optimize your webpages for each of the above factors and make sure to let Google know of your presence so your page can be indexed.