Googlebot is the name of Google's web crawler, which is continually scanning pages from the internet and storing them in Google's index and search. It uses an automated method to scan the internet for new content in the same way that a standard web browser does: The bot makes a request to the web server, which then responds immediately.
Then it downloads a single web page that can be found at a single URL and places it in Google's index. In this approach, Google crawler crawls the whole internet by crawling thousands of sites at once utilizing distributed and scalable resources. Googlebot has crawlers for mobile and desktop devices, as well as news, images, and videos.
How does Googlebot work?
Understanding how Googlebot works is important for good search engine optimization. We'll go over this briefly here.
Googlebot is based on a highly developed algorithm that can perform tasks independently and is based on the concept of the internet (WWW). The internet may be thought of as a huge network of web pages (nodes) and connections (hyperlinks). A URL is assigned to each node, and this web address can be used to access it. Hyperlinks on a single page might take you to different domains or subpages. The Google bot can recognize and evaluate links and resources (HREF links) (SRC links). The algorithms can figure out how Googlebot can search the whole network in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Googlebot comprises a range of crawling tactics. The multi-threading approach, for example, is used to execute many crawling processes at the same time. Aside from that, Google uses web crawlers to search certain sections of the internet, such as crawling the web by following specific sorts of hyperlinks.
How can you identify when Googlebot visited your website?
You can verify when Googlebot last crawled your page using the Google Search Console.
Step 1
Go to Google Search Console and choose "index coverage" from the drop-down menu. This brings up a list of errors or warnings. To see all error-free pages, go to the "valid" tab. Click on the row "valid" in the "details" table below.
Step 2
You'll now get a full list of your web pages that Google has indexed. It displays the date of the most recent crawling for each page. It's conceivable that the most recent version of a certain page hasn't yet been crawled. You can inform Google that the content of that page has changed and that it should be re-indexed in this situation.
What can you do to prevent Googlebot from crawling your site?
There are a variety of methods for delivering or concealing information from web crawlers. The HTTP header parameter "user-agent" may be used to identify each crawler. The specification for Google's web crawler is "Googlebot," which originates from the host address googlebot.com. These user agent entries are saved in the log files of the individual web server and give complete information about who sends requests to it.
You can choose whether or not you wish to block Googlebot from crawling your website. There are several options for excluding Googlebot from your website:
· The disallow directive in your robots.txt file can prevent the crawling of whole directories on your website.
· When a web page's robots meta tag is set to nofollow, Googlebot is told not to follow the links on that page.
· Individual links can also be given the "nofollow" tag to guarantee that Googlebot does not follow them (whereas all other links on that page are still crawled).
The importance of SEO
For search engine optimization, understanding how Googlebot works and how to affect it is important. You may use Google Search Console, for example, to notify Googlebot about new pages on your website. Additionally, sitemaps should be created and made available to search engine crawlers. Sitemaps give a quick summary of a website's URLs and can help to crawl go faster. The most essential thing is to assist Googlebot in navigating around your website so that it can identify all relevant material and not waste time on irrelevant pages.
Final thoughts
The internet is a vast and unpredictable world. To gather the data Google need for its search engine to function, Googlebot must navigate all of the varied settings, as well as downtimes and limitations.
To round things off, Googlebot is sometimes represented as a robot and is appropriately referred to as "Googlebot." There's also a mascot named "Crawley" who is a spider.