Crawlability refers to the ability of search engine bots (crawlers) to discover, access, and navigate through the pages of a website. It is a crucial aspect of SEO, as it directly impacts a website's indexation and visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Factors that can impede crawlability include:
- Robots.txt file blocking access to important pages
- Nofollow tags on internal links
- Poorly structured or broken internal linking
- Orphan pages (pages with no internal links pointing to them)
- Duplicate content or pages
- Inefficient URL structures or parameters
- Slow website loading speed
- Server errors (e.g., 404 errors)
- Unsupported content formats (e.g., Flash, Silverlight)
- Cloaking or hidden content
Crawlability for WordPress Websites
WordPress users can optimize their site's crawlability by using an SEO plugin like All in One SEO (AIOSEO).
Sitemaps: Once the plugin's uploaded it will automatically generate an XML sitemap and RSS sitemap, in accordance with Google's best practices.
Google analyst Greg Illyes has described sitemaps as the “second most important second most important source Google uses to crawl and discover URLs.”
Users can choose to add a video sitemap, HTML sitemap (for readers), or a Google News sitemap.
Robots.txt editor: In addition, the plugin generates a user-friendly robots.txt editor.
Why is Crawlability Important?
Crawlability allows search engines to discover and index a website's pages, making them eligible to appear in search results.
Good crawlability helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of a website, which can positively influence rankings.
Improved crawlability ensures that search engines can regularly update their index with the latest content and changes on a website.
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