Basics of Crawlability
Crawlability refers to the level of ease at which search engines like Google can find a webpage.
Google finds website pages through a process known as crawling. It uses automated programs called web crawlers (also known as bots or spiders). These crawlers follow links between pages to locate new or updated content.
Once a page is crawled, indexing usually happens next.
Indexability Explained
Indexability means that search engines, like Google, can add a webpage to their index.

Source: Google.com
Indexing is the process where Google looks at a webpage and its content and then adds it to a huge database of webpages known as the Google index.
Effects of Crawlability and Indexability on SEO
Crawlability and indexability are both key for SEO best practices.
First, Google needs to crawl a page. After that, it indexes the page. Only then can it rank the page in search results.
So, if a page isn’t crawled and indexed, it won’t be ranked by Google. No ranking means no search traffic.
That makes it necessary to ensure your website’s pages can be crawled and indexed.
Factors that Affect Crawlability and Indexability
Internal Links
Internal links significantly affect how well search engines can crawl and index your website.
Search engines use bots to explore and discover webpages. Internal links act like a roadmap, helping these bots move from one page to another on your site.
Good internal linking makes it easier for bots to find and index all your pages. Therefore, make sure every page on your site is connected to other pages.
Start by including internal links in your navigation menu, footer, and within your content.
If you’re building your site, creating a logical structure can help establish a strong internal linking system.
A logical site architecture organizes your content into categories, which then link to individual pages. Your homepage should link to category pages, and category pages should link to specific subpages.
Robots.txt
Robots.txt is like a bouncer for your website.
It’s a file that tells search engine bots which pages they can and cannot visit.
Here’s a simple example of a robots.txt file:
User-agent: *
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /blog/admin/
Here’s what each part means:
*User-agent: * : This line means the rules apply to all search engine bots.
Allow: /blog/ : This tells bots they can visit and crawl the pages in the “/blog/” section.
Disallow: /blog/admin/ : This tells bots not to visit the administrative part of the blog.
When search engines send bots to explore your site, they first check the robots.txt file to see if there are any restrictions.
Be careful not to block important pages you want search engines to see, like your blog posts or main pages.
Remember, robots.txt controls crawling but doesn’t directly affect indexing. Search engines can still find and index pages linked from other sites, even if they are blocked in robots.txt.
To prevent certain pages, like PPC landing pages or “thank you” pages, from being indexed, use a “noindex” tag.
XML Sitemap
This structure promotes a search engine crawling system to navigate and index your content more effectively.
Your XML sitemap is also essential. It provides search engine bots with a list of important pages on your site that you want them to crawl and index.
Think of your sitemap as a treasure map for search engines.

Source: Virtual Oplossing
It helps them find all your important pages, even the ones that are hard to locate through normal navigation.
By including these pages in your sitemap, you make it easier for search engine bots to crawl and index your site effectively.
Content Quality
Content quality affects how search engines handle your website.
Search engine bots prefer high-quality content. When your content is well-written, helpful, and relevant, it gets noticed more by search engines.
Search engine crawling aims to provide the best results, so they focus on pages with great content.
Technical Issues
Technical problems can stop search engine bots from crawling and indexing your website properly.
For example, slow-loading pages, broken links, or endless redirect loops can make it hard for bots to navigate your site.
If your site has duplicate content or incorrect canonical tags, search engines might get confused about which version of a page to index and rank.
These issues can hurt your website’s visibility in search results. It’s important to find and fix these problems quickly.
How to Spot Crawlability and Indexability Errors
Now there are plenty of tools for you to choose from, SEMrush’s Site Audit tool is something we’d like to talk about. It helps you pinpoint any technical issues that can affect your website’s crawlability and indexability.
Listed below are some of the issues that you can detect using this tool:
- Copied content
- Redirect loops
- Broken internal links
- Server-side errors
To begin with, Insert your website URL and click on “Start Audit.”
Following that, adjust your audit settings. After you’ve done that, click on “Start Site Audit.”
This will prompt the tool to start auditing your website for technical indexing errors. Once finished, a “Site Health” score will provide an overview of the technical health of your website.
This score rates your website’s technical health from 0 to 100.
To find problems with crawlability and indexability, go to “Crawlability” and click “View details.”
This will open a report showing issues that affect how search engines crawl and index your site.
Click on the horizontal bar graph next to each issue to see the affected pages.
If you don’t know how to fix something, click the “Why and how to fix it” link.
It will give you a brief explanation and tips for fixing the problem.
Fixing issues quickly and keeping your website in good technical shape will improve crawlability, ensure proper indexing, and help boost your rankings.
Best Practices to Enhance Crawlability and Indexability
Submit Sitemap to Google
Providing Google with a sitemap eases the crawling and indexing of your pages.
If you don’t have a sitemap, you can create one using a tool like XML Sitemaps. Simply enter your website URL and click “Start.” The tool will generate a sitemap for you.
Download the sitemap and upload it to your site’s root directory. For example, if your website is www.example.com, the sitemap should be at www.example.com/sitemap.xml.
After it’s live, submit it through your Google Search Console account. If you don’t have GSC set up yet, follow a guide to get started.
Once in GSC, go to “Sitemaps” in the sidebar, enter your sitemap URL, and click “Submit.”
This will help improve your website’s crawlability and indexing.
Robust Internal Links
The crawlability and indexability of a website also depend on its internal linking structure.
Fix issues like broken internal links and orphaned pages (pages with no links pointing to them) to strengthen your internal linking.
Using SEMrush’s site audit tool for this, go to the “Issues” tab and search for “broken.” The tool will show any broken internal links.
Click “XXX internal links are broken” to see a list.
You can either fix the broken page or set up a 301 redirect to another relevant page on your site.
To find orphan pages, search for “orphan” in the same tab. If there are any, add internal links pointing to those pages.
Update and Add New Content Regularly
Regularly updating your website with fresh content helps search engines find and index it more easily.
Search engines prefer websites with new content. By frequently adding updates, you show that your site is active.
This encourages search engine bots to visit your site more often and capture any changes.
Try to update your website regularly if you can.
Whether you’re posting new blogs or refreshing old ones, this keeps search engines interested and your content up-to-date in their index.
Steer Clear of Duplicate Content
Avoiding duplicate content is important for helping search engines find and index your site architecture better.
Duplicate content can confuse search engine bots and waste resources.
If similar or identical content is on multiple pages, search engines may not know which page to index.
Make sure each page on your site has unique content. Don’t copy content from other sources or reuse your own content on different pages.
Use SEMrush’s site audit tool to check for duplicate content.
In the “Issues” tab, look for “duplicate content.”
If you find duplicates, consider merging them into one page, and redirect the old pages to it.
You can also use canonical tags to show search engines which page to index.
Tools to Maximize Crawlability & Indexability
Log File Analyzer
SEMrush’s Log File Analyzer lets you see how Googlebot crawls your site and helps you find any errors it runs into.
To start, upload your website’s access log file and let the tool analyze it.
An access log file lists all the requests bots and users make to your site. Check out our guide on how to find the access log file to begin.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that helps you track if your website pages are indexed.
You can check if all your pages are indexed and find out why some might not be.
Site Audit
The Site Audit tool is your best friend for improving your site’s crawlability and indexability.
It highlights various issues that impact how well your site can be crawled and indexed by search engines.
Prioritize Crawlability and Indexability for SEO Success
Making sure your site is crawlable and indexable is the first step in Search Engine Optimization.
If it’s not, your pages won’t appear in search results, and you’ll miss out on organic traffic.
The Site Audit tool and Log File Analyzer can help you find and fix crawlability and indexation issues.