What Is Website Crawler? A Complete Guide to How it Works
Website crawler is one of the important things in the success of SEO strategy. When crawlers browse the internet, they will look for information from various websites, ranging from content, links, and structure.
All the information collected will be used by search engines to determine the relevance and ranking of a web page in search engine results. Therefore, it is important for a business to understand web crawlers to increase visibility and organic traffic on search engines.
This article will discuss the definition, functions, types, examples, how they work, and the effect of web crawlers on SEO. Below is the full explanation.
What Is a Website Crawler?
A web crawler is a tool commonly used by search engines like Google to index web pages and content from various websites.
All the information collected will be grouped according to the topic, and then stored in the database of a search engine. Therefore, when an internet user searches for information, the search engine will show relevant results based on the contents of the database.
In addition, this website crawler has various other names, such as web spider, spider bot, web bot, or crawler. As its name implies, the website crawler will explore the entire internet and collect all useful information in the form of images, videos, sounds, articles, and various other forms.
Each search engine has its own website crawler. This also affects the search results of certain keywords displayed by each search engine. So, each search engine can display different results even though the keywords entered are the same.
Here are some examples of web crawlers from each of the most popular search engines:
- Googlebot from Google.
- Bingbot from Bing.
- Slurp Bot from Yahoo.
- DuckDuckBot from DuckDuckGo.
- Yandex Bot from Yandex (a Russian search engine).
- Baiduspider from Baidu (a search engine from China).
- Sogou Spider from Sogou (a search engine from China).
- Exabot from Exalead.
- Alexa Crawler from Amazon.
In addition, Google, as the search engine market leader, usually provides better search results than other search engines. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that your website is indexed by Googlebot.
How Do Web Crawlers Work?
The crawling process usually starts with a website that recognizes and aims to identify the core of each page's content. The crawler looks for terms on this page and categorizes them so that they can be used by search engines when users search for information.
Pages on the internet are connected by hyperlinks, which allow crawlers to find and follow links to the next page. This makes internal linking very important, as it makes it easier for crawlers to index pages on a website.
After indexing the pages, website crawlers send the collected information to globally distributed servers.
However, the crawling process does not stop after the page is successfully indexed. Search engines will use crawlers periodically to check for changes to the page. When a change is found, the search engine index will be updated.
The Functions of Website Crawler
Web crawlers function to collect various information available on the internet. The function is not only that, there are so many other functions of web crawler, Here are some web crawler functions that you should know:
1. Presenting Data for Statistics
Website crawlers serve to present data for statistics by collecting information from various web pages. The data collected includes content, links, and other important elements, which are then processed into useful statistics.
These statistics can be used to analyze trends, measure website performance, and identify website improvement opportunities.
2. Providing Data for Analysis Tools
Website analysis tools rely on website crawlers to collect data and perform indexing. This way, the data generated is always accurate and up-to-date.
3. Comparing Prices
Website crawlers can compare product prices on the internet and ensure that the prices and product data are accurate. Therefore, when you search for a product, the price of the product will be displayed directly without the need to visit the seller's site.
Types of Website Crawlers
After understanding the definition of a web crawler, you also need to know the different types. Below are 4 types of website crawlers that you should note.
1. News Crawling
The internet makes news accessible globally and quickly. However, collecting data from various websites can be difficult to manage. With the help of website crawlers, this can be solved by capturing data from recent, old, and archived news content, as well as reading RSS feeds.
In addition, they also scan for other information, such as the publishing date, author name, lead paragraph, headline, and language of the news content.
2. Social Media Crawling
Keep in mind that some social media platforms may not allow crawling activities, as some forms of crawling may violate laws and data privacy.
However, some social media platforms are more open to crawling, such as Pinterest and X. They allow bot crawlers to scan pages as long as they don't reveal personal information.
3. Email Crawling
With email crawling, you will get leads because it allows the scanning of email addresses. However, the important thing to remember is that email crawling can violate privacy and can be illegal if done with the user's permission.
4. Image Crawling
Similar to its name, this type of crawling works on images, considering the number of sites that use visual content on the internet. This image crawling helps users find relevant images from several images available on the search engine.
5. Video Crawling
Video crawling helps users find relevant videos from various platforms and websites that contain video content by scanning the internet. Moreover, this type of crawling is very useful for finding and collecting information about videos, such as title, description, tags, duration, and other metadata.
How Do Website Crawlers Affect SEO?
As discussed in the previous explanation, a website crawler is a tool used for crawling and indexing. If a crawler doesn't index your website, it can't appear in search results. Without appearing in search results, your website will find it difficult to get top rankings in search engines.
Therefore, before implementing any SEO strategy, ensure your website is indexed. In addition, you should always maintain the health of your website so that it can be indexed properly.
One way to know the health of your website is to conduct a site audit. To perform the process, you can try using the Site Audit tool by Sequence Stat to provide an in-depth and complete analysis of your website's health.
With flexible features to customize crawl parameters and detailed reports covering various aspects of SEO, performance, and accessibility, you can easily identify and fix technical issues. In addition, transparent fees and reports stored in the audit history make it easy for continuous monitoring and improvement, thus improving your website's overall visibility and performance.
By understanding the important role of website crawlers in your SEO strategy, you can improve your website's visibility and ranking in search results. However, to maximize your website's potential to reach a wider audience, it is important to utilize the right tools to get optimal results.
Sequence Stat is here to help optimize your overall SEO strategy activities. With its advanced features, you can track keywords, analyze your website performance, and identify opportunities for further improvement.
Don't miss the opportunity to try a one-year free trial to track your keywords. Register now and see how Sequence Stat can make your SEO activities easier!