A site crawl is the process by which search engine bots or spiders visit and analyze web pages to determine their content and relevance.
What is a site crawl?
Software is used to scan a given website and collect data about the content, structure, and links on the page. It is an important tool for identifying potential issues affecting search engine rankings and user experience. Site crawlers can also detect broken links, duplicate content, and keyword stuffing on a website. The collected data can then be used to make improvements in order to optimize the website for search engine rankings. Popular software includes Google’s Search Console Crawler and Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider.
Why is site crawling important?
Site crawling offers insight into many issues, it can:
- Help identify any technical issues with a website.
- Uncover SEO errors, such as broken links or missing meta tags.
- Detect duplicate content that’s hurting the website’s ranking.
- Help find relevant content for link-building.
- Analyze the competition and find opportunities to outrank them.
Why does a content strategist need to know about site crawling?
A content strategist needs to understand the basics of site crawling to guarantee that the content they manage is visible and accessible to search engines. Site crawling also helps content strategists understand how their content is being indexed by search engines. Understanding what a crawler looks for can help a content strategist optimize their content for better visibility and ranking. Site crawling is important for understanding how users interact with your website, as it allows you to see which pages are most popular and where there might be issues with navigation. Finally, site crawling can help you detect potential issues with your website such as broken links and outdated content. Knowing these issues beforehand can help you plan and prevent any SEO or usability problems down the line.