Crawl refers to the process by which search engines discover updated and new pages to add to their index. This process is performed by programs called crawlers, spiders, or bots. These bots start with a list of web page URLs generated from previous crawl processes and augmented by sitemap data provided by webmasters. As they visit these URLs, they identify links on the pages and add them to the list of sites to crawl next, allowing them to discover new pages and updates to existing pages.

Crawling is a fundamental aspect of SEO because it’s the first step in having a web page appear in search engine results. If a page is not crawled, it cannot be indexed or ranked by search engines. Here are some key points about the crawling process:

• Crawlers follow links: Crawlers discover content by following links from one page to another. This is why having a good internal linking strategy is crucial for SEO, as it helps crawlers discover new content.
• Robots.txt file: Websites can use the robots.txt file to control and manage crawler access to certain parts of the site. This can prevent crawlers from accessing duplicate content, sensitive information, or sections of the site that are not intended for public indexing.
• Sitemaps: Webmasters can use sitemaps to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. A sitemap can be particularly useful for websites that are new, have dynamically generated content, or have pages not easily discovered by crawlers through links.
• Crawl budget: This is the number of pages a search engine crawler will crawl on a site within a certain timeframe. It’s important for larger sites or those with vast amounts of content. Optimizing the crawl budget ensures that the most important content is crawled and indexed more frequently.

Improving a website’s crawlability can lead to better indexing and, as a result, better visibility in search engine results. SEO best practices aimed at enhancing crawlability include optimizing site structure, improving page speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, creating and submitting sitemaps, and using the robots.txt file judiciously to guide crawlers to the content that matters most.