Have you ever wondered how to get Google to crawl your site? There is so much that goes into creating a quality website, and there are a few things that make it easily recognizable to Google. It is also important to understand how crawling works. This will help you know what changes to make so that your site is visible to web traffic, and to ensure that you are getting everything you can out of your current SEO.
Table of Contents
How Does Google Crawling Work?
Google is a search engine, so people can type things into the search bar and find the most suitable site. To be able to find a website, Google has to scan through hundreds of thousands of pages to be able to find the most relevant ones. If you don’t submit anything to Google, it will eventually crawl your site, which could take months. You will want to make your site known to Google as soon as it is complete. It can be a little tricky to submit your pages for review, but hopefully Google will have already found your website. If you make your site extremely readable to Google, it will place you higher in the rankings.
When Google sees a new website, it crawls it, or reads it. As it “reads” the information, it will be able to identify different things. One thing Google looks for is keywords. A keyword is a word used frequently on your site, which usually helps Google interpret what your site is all about. There are long and short keywords, and the most frequently featured words will help Google see how to better categorize your site. Use them wisely!
Googlebot
The name of Google’s crawler is “Googlebot.” Although it sounds like an adorable robot friend, it is actually just a program. This crawler is specifically designed to be able to read and categorize all different kinds of websites. It crawls the site by analyzing your content, code, and data. There are two different forms of Googlebot. One of them is designed to copy a user on a desktop computer, while the other is designed to mimic a user on a mobile device. Both are important to have, because some websites are not formatted for mobile use, and people also search differently on a mobile device versus a laptop.
When Googlebot crawls your site, you want to make sure everything is easy to read and interpret. Get rid of things like broken links, mis-typed code, or low-quality images. Googlebot will relay the information that it finds back to the main database. Be careful not to accidentally allow bots that are not Googlebot onto your page. There are ways to block bots that will harm your website, so if you take that route, make sure you do not block Googlebot!
The Google Index
Google stores all of this information about all of the websites it finds in one place: the Google Index. The Google Index is available to anyone. You can also find out if your site is on the Google Index. Even blocked sites can be listed on the index. It currently contains billions of web pages! When you first create your website, you will want to get your site listed on the index. You can request an index coverage report from Google. This will show you if your site has been indexed, if there were any problems with your site when it was indexed, and what kind of Googlebot was used. It isn’t always comprehensive, but if you have at least some of your site on the index, it will be much easier to find in Google searches.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Why would you have a beautiful and functional website if nobody ever visits it? If you have many web visitors, your site is more likely to be crawled by Google. One of the best ways to ensure that your site is doing well is by using SEO to get your website ranked higher. To attract more visitors, you need to do things to your site to optimize it for being searched.
Content
Enhance your rankings and get Google to crawl your site by having content that is easily identifiable by Google. As mentioned previously, the use of keywords is very important. It is easy to get recognizable keywords in your site through creating a blog. Blogs are great because they add a lot of text to your website without taking away from your overall view and message. It also makes it so that people who are interested in your site for just purchasing or information don’t have to read a long post if they don’t want to.
Don’t bore your visitors. Content on your main pages needs to be focused and to the point. People won’t hang around forever to read a long bio if they aren’t expecting it. Keep your content focused on your website’s purpose, and make it very clear what you sell or what you do. This will also make it easier for Googlebot to read and classify your site correctly.
Design
Another important aspect to SEO is the design of your website. People will be more willing to explore your website if it is attractive and modern. Cater to your prospective audience, and make changes to your design to figure out what works best. If you are updating your site’s design frequently, you may be able to get Google to crawl your site more often as you keep making changes. Google wants to keep its index up-to-date, so you may increase your ranking just through innovating! You also want to keep track of things like site loading times, which also affects your rankings. If your site has a better loading time, Google will be much more likely to crawl it as well. Make your website’s design a top priority because it will affect all different aspects of your online presence.
Sitemaps
Another way to get Google to crawl your site is by creating a sitemap. A sitemap is a simple concept, but it can be difficult to create. When you create a sitemap, you create a basic outline of your website in a way that makes it easy to interpret. You can make a sitemap by using XML, the program Google Sites, URL’s, or mRSS (used mostly for video). A good reason to make a sitemap is that it gives Google everything it needs to index your site quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, it can take a long time and a lot of work, depending on how large your site is. It may not be worth it to make a sitemap if your website is relatively small. Google itself recommends that you do not make a sitemap if your website contains less than 500 pages.
If you do decide to create a sitemap, you need to submit it to Google so they can index it quickly. If you submit sitemaps regularly, Googlebot will not need to spend as much time reading your individual pages. Remember not to do it too frequently, because it takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks for Google to get to your individual sitemap.
Linking
If you want to get Google to crawl your site, in addition to these other things, you can always focus on linking. This is when you create a link to another site’s URL within the text of your web pages. Linking is also great for your SEO. When you create links to other pages, Google thinks your site is more important. Tastefully creating links can make your site so much more accessible not only to the average user, but also to Googlebot. Keep in mind that there are only certain kinds of links that Google can crawl! You will want to make those as accessible as possible. Hopefully, as you link to other pages, other pages will begin to make links to your site as well.
How To Improve
Getting Google to crawl your site is only one aspect of building an online presence for your company. As you make improvements, you will start to see more visitors and more customers. You will need to remember to keep up with your Google Indexing and stay relevant. Don’t just create a sitemap and turn it in when you first make these changes and never do it again. Stay on top of the changes you are making! Maybe every few weeks or months, review your index information and check for broken or missing pieces that it points out to you. See which of your pages get the most views and try to apply those things to your other ones.
When you keep up with your Google rankings and make necessary changes, you will see patterns of what works and what does not. Having Google crawl your site is important, but it is only one small piece of the puzzle, so make sure to do it well. Then you can build on it to create a better website one step at a time!
Contact Us Today!