When it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO) and digital marketing in general, we often hear the term ‘website crawling’ and similar terms. However, what does this actually mean and how can you ensure your website or that of any of your clients is crawled?
What is ‘Website Crawling?’
Website crawling refers to the process by which search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and Baidu can read, process, understand and therefore rank the website in question. ‘Crawling’ is often used by those in the SEO and website marketing industry; it is fundamental to the very essence of what SEO is and how search engine marketing functions.
All search engines function through algorithms, which automatically read and understand [crawl] websites; their content, the words on the website(s) in question and the overall theme and focus. For example, if you are running a website in Brighton as a psychologist’s practice (find out more), you wouldn’t want search engines to misunderstand the site and rank you as if you were a website in France selling mobile phones.
Does Website Crawling Affect My Website’s Rankings?
The short answer here is yes. Ultimately, if Google, or indeed any other search engine is unable to understand and crawl your website, it will not be ranked properly if at all. Hence, this is one of the first factors which should be taken care of when revamping or just looking to improve your website’s online standing.
What Can I do to Improve my Website’s Crawling?
There is no single thing which you can do to improve and increase your website’s funding. However, there are a number of practices which undertaken, certainly increase your chances f being crawled and may even improve your rankings and positioning online. These include:
- Meta Data – This refers to the specific data [meta title and description] which should be assigned to each and every page on your website. Optimising your meta data helps search engines to read and understand pages on your website and therefore help rankings
- Website Speed – The speed and overall performance of your website is another important factor which implemented properly, can help search engines favour your website in rankings more than others who do not pay attention to their speed
- Errors and Broken Links – By ensuring there are no 404 errors or other error response codes across your website, you allow the algorithms and specific search engines to follow an unbroken path through your website, helping ensure it will be better understood