Crawlability

What Is Crawlability?

Crawlability is the ability of a search engine like Google to access and crawl your website pages.

Good crawlability means it’s easier for search engine crawlers such as Googlebot and Bingbot to crawl and navigate your page.

The easier you make it for search engines, the higher you will rank.

Think about it like this:

If Google can’t crawl your site, they can’t index it. And if they can’t index it, your pages won’t appear in search results.

Simple as that!

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Why Is Crawlabilty Important For SEO?

Crawlability is important for SEO because it directly affects your visibility in Google’s organic search results.

Google has to index websites before they appear in the SERPs. They do this by crawling the site and storing the crawled information in their index.

Here’s the problem…

Google has hundreds of millions of websites to crawl on the internet.

But crawling the internet costs money.

To solve this problem, Google allocates a crawl budget for each website.

Think of your crawl budget as the maximum amount of resources Google is willing to spend to crawl your site.

Your goal is to maximise your crawl budget as much as possible. This will lower the cost of Google crawling your website.

Research shows that the easier you make it for Google to crawl your site, the more likely you will have higher rankings.

That’s why it’s essential to optimise crawlabilty on your site!

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What Impacts Website Crawlability?

These are the eight elements that impact website crawlability most:

1. Website Structure

Website structure is like the backbone of your entire website.

A well-organised structure enhances crawlability, making it easier for search engines to navigate and index your site efficiently.

Create a logical and user-friendly website structure to improve search engine visibility and enhance user experience.

what is an silo structure

Check out our complete website silo structure guide to learn more.

2. Internal Linking

Google crawls the internet through links.

Internal Linking

It makes sense that internal links significantly affect the crawlability of your website.

Add relevant internal links to each page of your website. The goal is to help users navigate and find the related information as quickly as possible.

As a result, you will also improve your website’s crawlability and help Google understand how pages on your site are connected.

3. URL Structure

Your URL structure should be clean and simple. Short, descriptive URLs are easier for search engines to crawl and better for SEO.

length of url

Avoid using unnecessary parameters, complex strings or adding dates in your URL structure.

Keep it straightforward and to the point.

Think about it like this…

A user should be able to see your URL and know what the page is about.

4. XML Sitemap

Think of your XML sitemap as a map of your entire website.

This XML sitemap file lists all your website’s pages, guiding search engines to your key content.

Create an XML sitemap, submit it to Google, and ensure it is automatically updated every time you create a new page or post new content.

add google sitemaps

This makes it much easier (and faster) for Google to crawl your website.

I use the free Rank Math plugin to create and manage my XML sitemap.

5. Robots.txt File

The robots.txt file tells search engine bots which pages to crawl and which to ignore.

This is essential for managing crawl efficiency and keeping Google away from irrelevant content.

It also maximises your crawl budget because Google only crawls pages worth indexing.

Make sure that your robots.txt file is configured correctly to block unnecessary pages while allowing access to important ones.

6. Mobile-Friendliness

What is mobile friendliness?

Short answer: A website that is responsive and optimised for mobile devices.

mobile responsive website

Google now crawls and indexes the mobile version of your website first.

That means your website rankings are almost entirely based on your website’s mobile version.

Create a responsive design that looks good on mobile devices and is as user-friendly as possible.

7. Page Speed

Faster loading pages are a win-win for both users and search engines.

page speed statistics

It’s also considered an important Google ranking factor.

But a faster-loading website improves its crawlability as well.

It allows search engine bots to crawl more pages in less time, ensuring that more of your content gets crawled.

That’s exactly what you want!

Optimise your site speed by compressing images, using caching techniques, and minimising unnecessary code.

8. Broken Links

Broken links stop search engines in their tracks.

If they can’t follow a link because it’s broken, the crawler has to go backwards and ultimately spend more time navigating the site.

Regularly audit your site for 404 errors and add a 301 redirect for any dead links you find.

what is a 301 redirect

Ensure all your internal and external links work so search engines can crawl your site efficiently.

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