What is crawling? And what does Google do with it?
Crawling is a process in which search engines such as Google scour the Internet to discover new and updated Web pages. This is done with the help of a program, often called a "crawler" or "bot," that goes from link to link and examines each page it encounters. The purpose of crawling is to understand the content of these pages so that Google can include them in its index. This index is a giant database of Web pages that Google uses to quickly display relevant search results when someone searches for something on Google.
When Google crawls a website, the bot looks at page content, such as text, images, and videos, as well as the structure of the website and how everything is organized. The crawling is done regularly, so Google stays abreast of new or changed content on your website. If a page is not crawled properly, chances are it won't show up in search results, meaning people will have a harder time finding your website.
To ensure that your Web site can be crawled properly by Google, you can use tools such as Google Search Console, where you can see how Google is crawling your site and fix any problems. Having a robots.txt file and an XML sitemap also helps guide the crawler to the important parts of your website. In addition, there is a handy tool called Screaming Frog. Screaming Frog allows you to crawl your own Web site like a search engine would, giving you insight into how well your site is optimized for crawlers and where possible areas for improvement lie. This helps you ensure that all important pages are properly indexed and visible in search results.
