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DIGITAL AGENCY

Principles of Search Robots

Anastasia Melnyk
Oct 19, 2023
Robot arm with magnifier

Today's Internet is a place for communication and entertainment and a huge marketplace where companies and entrepreneurs compete for users' attention. So how can you attract more visitors to your site and stand out from your competitors? One of the key points here is website optimization for search engines. And here comes the aid of search robots.

But what kind of beasts are these - search robots? How do they work, and what do you need to know about them to make your site more attractive to visitors and search engines? In this material, we'll understand the basic principles of crawling and indexing and what you can do to improve this process on your site. You will learn what mechanisms underlie the work of search robots, which methods of indexing new pages are most effective and what steps you can take to maximize your site's visibility in search engines.

What Are Search Robots?

Search engine robots are automated programs search engines use to crawl and analyze Web pages. Their main task is finding new and updated pages and determining their relevance to user queries.

Search engine robots constantly analyze the Web and add new pages to search indexes. They rely on links to move between different site pages and bypass new web resources. Search engine robots can also use sitemaps and other sources to identify new URLs to analyze.

When a search robot is commanded to bypass a site, it starts from the main page and follows the links found on that page. It goes through all the available links, going from one page to the next to bypass all the levels of the site hierarchy. In this way, the search robot can discover new pages that need to be indexed.

In addition to links, search engine robots can use sitemaps provided by webmasters to determine the site's structure and find new URLs. Site maps list all available pages on a site and help search robots get around all corners of the site, especially if some pages are not linked to each other.

Search engine robots continuously scan the Internet for new and updated pages. They play a key role in keeping search results relevant by helping users find the information they seek.

Scanning and Indexing: The Main Differences

Scanning is a process whereby search robots go around the web pages, gather information about them, and determine which ones are worth analyzing. By scanning the page, the robot will get information about the page (page URL, headers, meta tags, content, etc.) 

Indexing is the process of adding a page to the search index. After the page has been crawled, the search engine analyzes its content and determines its relevance to various keywords and phrases. If the page is deemed relevant and useful, it is added to the index, and users can find it for certain search queries.

If a page meets the criteria of relevance and usefulness, it is added to the search index. It becomes searchable by users who can find it by performing appropriate search queries. The more relevant the page is considered, the higher it will appear in search results.

It is important to note that indexing does not guarantee instant visibility of a page in search results. The ranking of pages and their display in the results depends on many factors, including:

  • Competition with other pages.
  • Quality of content.
  • The reputation and authority of the site as a whole.

Thus, crawling and indexing are essential processes that allow search engines to organize and provide relevant information to the user when performing search queries.

What to Do With the Site to Improve the Scanning and Indexing of the Entire Site and Individual Pages

You can take several actions to improve the crawling and indexing of the site and its individual pages. Here are some recommendations:

  • Creating the correct structure of the site. Building the site's structure so that each page the robot can get to 2-3 clicks will facilitate the work of the search robot. Pages with a strong nesting are ranked worse.
  • Organization of internal relinking.
  • It is necessary to use XML and HTML sitemap since a link from the sitemap.xml file is not considered an internal link; an HTML sitemap will give additional weight to important pages.
  • Optimize the meta tags and the page titles.
  • Implementing schema.org micro marking on site pages. Micro-parsing helps robots determine what content is contained in each page block.
  • Getting rid of duplicate pages/categories.
  • Filling pages with unique and useful content.
  • Optimization of pages for keyword cluster. Add them to Title and Description tags, headlines, advantage blocks, FAQ blocks, etc.
  • Fast load time and adaptation for mobile devices. Many sites get "Mobile first" status (you can check in GSC), which means the mobile robot Googlebot-Mobile checks the site. Cutting content on the mobile version's page can negatively impact crawling, indexing and page ranking.
  • Frequently and gradually update the content on the site. Do not put 50 articles in one day; it will be much more profitable to divide the monthly volume, thus attracting search robots to your site more often.

Ways to Index New Pages

To index new pages on the site, you can use the following methods:

  • Google Search Console you can send new site pages for indexing.
  • Google Indexing API for Google - forced indexing of website pages bypassing the limit in Search Console; not more than 200 URLs from one domain per day.
  • Links. Both internal and external. If the page is important, you can add it to the end-to-end block on your site (in the header or footer). You can also start adding inexpensive rental links to the page with relevant anchors for about a month and remove them.

Several other ways can help speed up the indexing of new pages. One such way is to use social media. Posting a link to your new page on social media can make search engines find and index the page faster.

It's also worth paying attention to the uniqueness of the content on the page. If your new page has unique and useful content, this can attract the attention of search engine robots and speed up the indexing process. In addition, if the site already has highly ranked pages and links to the new page, this can also speed up its indexation.

Finally, patience is required when waiting for new pages to be indexed. Search engine robots bypass many sites, and index upgrades can take some time. However, the approaches listed above can increase the likelihood of your new pages getting indexed faster and more efficiently. 

Remember that search engine optimization is a continuous process, and paying close attention to SEO components will assist in enhancing your site's visibility in search engine results.

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Frequently asked questions

What do search robots do?

Search robots, also known as web crawlers or spiders, are programs that systematically scan and index web pages on the internet for search engines to use in their search results.

How do I index a page for SEO?

To index a page for SEO, make sure it has a clear and concise title and description, uses relevant keywords in the content and meta tags, has high-quality content, and is linked to by other reputable websites.

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Are You Ready To Grow Your Website?

Understanding the ins and outs of website growth, we help ensure that your site grows over time with ever-increasing reach and accessibility. Not only do we employ the latest digital marketing techniques for driving traffic directly to your website, but our strategies also focus on gaining loyalty from those visitors so they come back again and again.
Leave your contacts to get a comprehensive and aggressive digital marketing plan taking your business to new heights.