Have you ever wondered what is a Googlebot? I’ve found it mind-boggling sometimes to think how the web really works behind the scenes. It can be hard to visualize the bots crawling the web.

If you have more information and an infographic, it may make it easier and understand why SEO is so integral to your blog today.

This information will make it easier to understand why SEO is so important, but don’t stop there! Read on for even more fascinating facts about Googlebot and its vast network of computers that keep the web crawling.

What Is A Googlebot?

A Googlebot crawls the web looking for new pages to crawl and index. Google uses a huge set of computers to crawl the web constantly. There are 17 different types of Googlebot’s today. These seem to grow each year with newer technology. For example, years ago there were no mobile or video Googlebots. (The varieties have grown significantly since this blog post was first written back in 2014!)

Hence, they use an algorithmic process via computer programs to determine which websites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each website.

However, this Googlebot process can change from time to time via Google updates as well.

The Search Engine Crawl Process

Google’s crawl process begins with a list of website page URLs, generated from previous crawl processes. It is then increased with Sitemap data provided by webmasters. (That is why sitemaps are important for your blog to have.)

As a Googlebot visits each of these websites it detects links on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New websites, changes to existing websites, and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index.

Now, do you see why updating fresh content on your blog becomes so important? However, do note that updating for the sake of updating may appear as spam. Be sure to provide new information in the updated content.

Google doesn’t accept payment to crawl a site more frequently and they claim they don’t go by who spends how much on Google AdWords.

After a Googlebot does a crawl, it index’s the web pages by compiling an index of words it sees and their location on a page.  Title tags and alternative attributes are definitely a plus in this crawling process. Many rich media files do not contain these and do not get indexed.

The Results In Search

The Google search engine is crawling the web in order to find websites that are relevant when you do a search. The relevancy of these sites depends on at least 200+ ranking factors, so it’s important for your site to be found by this bot and indexed properly if want to rank well.

You can always check with your webmaster tools in the Google Search Console for some insights into how things may look from their perspective.

Furthermore, you can see the new video page indexing for your blog as well.  According  to Google, it will show you:

• In how many pages has Google identified a video?
• Which videos were indexed successfully?
• What are the issues preventing videos from being indexed?

This will help you decide which videos to use on your blog posts or not. It will show you the issues preventing them from crawling your video as well.

How To Help The Googlebot On Your Blog

• Use internal links to guide the Googlebot.
• Have a valid sitemap.
• Check your blog for speed, a major factor for visitors and search engines.
• Have a clean URL structure.
• Use image optimization for all your images.
• Quality content, of course!
• Check your canonicals = duplicate pages.
• See your indexing in the search console, then submit an updated piece of content if needed.
• Look for blocked URLs and fix the blocked URLs. The robot files may not be working properly and made need adjustments.

The Nasty Googlebots

Did you note that every 24 Googlebots that visit your site are fake? Those are those nasty spammers and scrapers!  According to Search Engine Watch, these nasty Googlebots are up 61% this year.

If you know for sure you have them you can block them via your Google Webmaster tools but be sure not to block Google or the other major search engines as well.

Speaking of nasty Googlebots and spammers – there are some now impersonating bloggers. I’ve had this happen several times now and want to share it so you can be on the lookout.

@Lisapatb Hey Lisa, someone left a comment on two of my blogs as you, but I know it’s not you. So weird..

— Mitch Mitchell (@Mitch_M) September 1, 2014

So be extra careful approving blog comments out there! Thanks to Mitch Mitchell for pointing this one out.

Your Turn on Googlebot

Does your blog or website have a sitemap? How often do you update your blog? I’d love to hear about your experience with it in the comments below.

The post Googlebot: What Is It And What It Does To Your Blog? appeared first on Inspire To Thrive.