How often does Google crawl a site? 

It’s the moment of truth! Your new website is live, and you need people to visit it. HowSo you’re probably asking the question, “how do I get Google to crawl my site?” 

We’ve all seen the movie where someone creates a website and “puts it live” and the laptop “dings” within minutes because someone is visiting. 

While this is a fun idea, and while we’ve run many a paid campaign and watched with bated breath as the clicks roll in, it still begs the question: 

How?When it comes to organic content, how do I get Google to crawl my site? how often does Google crawl a site, And is there anything I can do to speed up the crawling process? This blog post answers that question. 

How often does Google crawl a site? 

It’s the moment of truth! Your new website is live, and you need people to visit it. HowSo you’re probably asking the question, “how do I get Google to crawl my site?” 

We’ve all seen the movie where someone creates a website and puts it “live,” and within minutes the laptop “dings” because someone is visiting. 

While this is a fun idea, and while we’ve run many a paid campaign and watched with bated breath as the clicks roll in, it still begs the question: 

A web publisher asked in a webmaster hangout how quickly Google removed pages from the index if they added a noindex nofollow tag to them. The publisher said they added “noindex,” but the page remained in Google’s index. Google’s John Mueller provided an explanation that revealed some interesting facts about how web pages are indexed. 

John Mueller revealed that Google crawls URLs at different speeds. That’s not surprising. What was surprising was that he said that some URLs could only be crawled once every six months! 

This is exactly what John Mueller said: “I think the hardest part here is that we don’t always crawl URLs at the same frequency.”  As a result, some URLs will be crawled on a daily basis.  Some URLs may be checked weekly, while others may be checked every few months, or even every half year.

John Mueller 

So this is something we try to find the right balance for so that we don’t overload your server. 

And if you’ve made major changes to your website across the board, then many of those changes are likely to be picked up pretty quickly, but a few will remain. 

So, in particular, if you are doing site queries, for example, there is a chance that you will see those URLs that are crawled once every six months. They’ll still be there in a few months. 

And that’s about the average time for us to reprocess or recrawl things. As a result, it is not always a sign that something is completely broken technically. 

But it does mean that if you think these URLs shouldn’t be indexed at all, maybe you can back that up a bit and say, “Well, here’s a sitemap file with the last modified date, so Google goes off and tries to double-check this one a little faster than usual.” 

Search Engine Journal published an article about this hangout. 

How?So, when it comes to organic content, how do I get Google to crawl my site? how often does Google crawl a site, And is there anything I can do to speed up the crawling process to get more website traffic? This blog post answers that question. 

Why should you index your site? 

For your site to appear in search results, it must be indexed. Although we have some small business clients who are not always looking for SEO with their websites (they use them as a business card), you still need to be indexed to get found at all. 

GoogleAnd you don’t want to run “request google to reindex the site” once. You want Google (and other search engines) to keep doing it. 

Search engines like Google don’t just update automatically. They use spiders. not real spiders. That would be too scary. I’m talking about bits of code going out and “crawling” the web. 

What exactly are web crawlers? 

I think I’ve written so much without even explaining the meaning of “crawling” in digital marketing  . 

The friendly spider’s job is to search for new content and update the already-indexed version of your website. “New things” can mean a new page, a new blog, or changes to an existing page. 

According to the wonderful Wikipedia , a web crawler,    also called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to a crawler, is an Internet bot that systematically surfs the World Wide Web, typical of web indexing ( webspidlingspiding).   Search engine crawlers look for URLs on your site and place them where they believe is appropriate. t.

Google’s crawler is called the Googlebot. It crawls through websites and adds all the information on a page to a Google indesotitncanhbe foundon later when someonsearches fores that topic on a searcengine. e.

How does Google crawwebsites?

In “crawling,”g, Google visits your website with its spider crawler. It’s nothing sca—, just a little spider crawling through the pages of your website. After crawling has taken place, Google indexes youwebsite. e.

But what exactly is a Google crawl? Simply put, th” ‘Googleb”t’ follows a path through your websiteviaVia a sitemap, if you have one, or via the associated pages and linked pages.  That’s why you need a   . really good site structure Indexing is the process of adding crawled pages to an index. . Instead of yellow pages, the index is a huge database of web pages. Google and other search engines can display them when you search for somethinonline. e.

The search engine is only as good as the code and content of your website. In order for Google to index your site, it must comply with web standards. Some pages may not be indexed if they contain errors, such as not being mobi-e friendly. Google may choose not to crawl duplicate content. Gone are the days of having multiple pages with a tweak of just one word. Google decides which page deserves to be indexed and ignores thothers. s.

Where will Google index mcontent? t?

It used to be simple. Just enter the keyworonto the page as many times as possible. But come on, this is ridiculous because it doesn’t provide any quality to the user! Fortunately, search engines have become a lot smarter than they used tbe. e.

Fortunately, thesdays,ys it’s not just ignored by search engines to put keywords in your content (and meta tags). You will probably get fined for itYour website may even be blacklisted and removed from the search engines. whichch means you don’t score for anything. Buwhy? y?

Because Google’s algorithm is now much more concerned with overall user experience and “search intent.” – Why is this person searching for a certain search term? Usually it’s onof theof four “I want to go, I want to know, I want to buy, or I want to learn” micro-moments specified bGoogle. e.

And that’s why indexing is so important. Regular indexing also improves your search results overall. If you want to rank higher in search results, give it a try! When the web crawler detects changes to your website, it updates them in Google’s searchable index. The pages are added to the index only if they meet webmaster standards and don’t do anythinillegal. k.

When the crawler sees changes on your website, it processes those changes, analyses the content and code, and neatly adds them to the index. That’s itreally. y.

When a user types something into Google, the algorithm determines where your page ranks compared to all other pages related to those words. I think it’s kind of like the charts. The more popular a page is, the higher it wilrise. e.

What are the most crucial indexinfactors? s?

We update our site quite often, and as result,lt it gets crawled every few days, sometimes daily. As a rule, you want to crawl regularly. It’s like Google is interested in what’s going on. SearchCheck in with the Google searcConsolele to find out when your site was last crawled. Here are some factors that make it better foGoogle: e:

Speed. – This means a better experience for your users. The better the experience, the higher your site will rank. The faster place isce, the easier it is to index. I use SEMRush to monitor websites, and if a page is slow, SEMRush sometimes times out. Google doesn’t have all day, so make sure your pages arfast. t.

The other way you can help is by submitting your sitemaps. But I’ll get into that in more detail laterLet’s get started on getting your site indexed. d.

Step 1: Am I alreadindexed? d?

Do a quick check by si,e: followed by typing your domain into Google. This will tell you if your pages are on Google and how many therare. e.

Step 2: Set up Search Console and GooglAnalytics. s.

If you’re not usi   Google Search Consoe  (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) to monitor and crawl your web page, you should. Here you will find valuable insights that you should not miss. This is how you find out what people are really typing to find your wepages. s.

SearchGet a Google searcConsolele account and connect your website. This post doesn’t go into how to do that, as it assumes you ha   Google Analytis  installed, or you probably won’t be asking about Google’s crawstatistics. s.

Just know that you need to verify that you are the site owner. This is easy if you ha   Google Analytis  set up on your website. All you need to do is add your domain through the searcconsole,le and you’ll be presented with a number of ways to verify. The easiest way is throu   Google Analytics.  .

The Google Search Console (a free service) gives you specific data about how often the Google crawler visits youwebsite. e.

It looks likthis: s:

Google Search Console stores the website data for the last sixteen months and c   give you fantastic insights into your website. How you are found, what key phrases you appear for, and how often users click on those search resul s.

You can compare results year over year or with a comparable period. For example, you can compare the last three months with the previous thremonths. s.

You can also view a lisof theof URLs or pages that appear for each search term. More usefully, you can view the top pages driving traffic to your site and the search terms that generated an impression for your landing page. This is a useful tool for figuring out keyword opportunities and seeing where you might rank if you haven’already. y.

Google Search Console is so much more than an error monitor in this regard. It is a brillia   keyword research tool.  .

If you have a WordPress website, install Google Site Kit. It takes care of all this for yowithin a few simplclicks. s.

Step 3: Create a content marketing strategy anblog. og

Most website owners just assume that adding content and entering some keywords is enough. That is not true. You need to build a content strategy around search engine results if you want to get found anindexed. d.

Plan your content based on keyword research, keyword difficulty, and search volumes. It’s a great starting point. When I started my digital business, I was also under the impression that all I had to do was add content. As   digital agen  , we have an offer that covers our projects and even compannews. s.

As time passed, I learned how few people who know nothing about your company are interested in your company news. You need to create content based on topics that users are searching fod within your niche. Don’t start writing posts on unrelatetopics. s.

A recent HubSpot study suggested tht  40% of marketers say content marketig  is an integral part of their overa   marketing strategy.  .

Try to publish informativevaluable,le and exciting content. Nobody cares if your company just turne10. 0.

Use infographics like th   2020 content marketininfographic. ic

When you create content, try to create it not only for yoursef, but also as a guest post on other reputable sites. On the other hand, don’allow linksnk back to your site from spammy sites. Google assumes you arspammy. y.

We recommed  Neil Patel’s content strate  . Here’s hiframework. k.

• What are your goalsSpecify SMART goals and how you will track your progress (for example, with statistics). ).
• Who is your target audienceCustomer profiles, also known as personas, are critical for understanding your target audience and what they want or need. d.
• What types of content will you produce? You want to make sure you’   delivering the kind of contet  your target audience wants tsee. e.
• Where is it published? Of course, you host your own content on your website, but you may also want to reach out to other sites or use platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn, anSlideshare. e.
• How often do you publish your content? It is much better to consistently produce one well-written, high-quality article per week than to post every day and then not publish anything for a month. Consistency ikey. y.
• What systems will you use to publish your content? Systems are basically just repeatable routines and steps to perform a complex task. They help you save time and write your content faster to stay on track. Anything that allows y   to publish content in less time without sacrificing quali   will improve your bottoline. e.
•  Mention the    and blogging/content tools and technolo   you will be using and how they will fit into yousystem. m.

Once you have your strategy in place, start writing. You have to commit tit,it and that takes a lot of effort. Especially if you’re not a large company with a team of content write, . I am sitting at home on a Saturdaafternoon,on updating this blog post. But this is one of my most visited pages, so it’s worth driving traffic to ouwebsite. e.

You should be blogging even if you have an eCommerce website. If you have new products, write about them. Can you write about lifestyle topics related to your productsForor example, if you have a website that sells health supplements, write about healthy lifestyle topics and link back to youproducts. s.

Step 4: Have a linkagstrategy. y.

Internal linksi.e.,e. links to other pages on your website, are the be   whi-e hat SO  quick wins I know of. First, you have a lot of links in your website navigation. The structure of your website is essential, and topics and themes should be groupetogether. r.

Make sure you have user-friendly URLs. mean,an they shouldn’t be too long, and they should contain words, nononsense. e.

Use a sidebar in your blog to link to your most popular pages and posts. You can even manually create related topic links, such as Related Posts: Why Your Website StructurMatters. s.

This type of link building encourages the Google bot to come back ancrawl againwl. It also keeps users on your site longer and (hopefully) provides them with more usefucontent. t.

Step 5: Use sociamedia. ia

If you don’t already ha   social meda  profiles for your website, do it nowPartrt f  search engine optimizati  will be in 2020 is paying attention    social med   signa  . Despite bein”nofollow,”‘, they seem to add some weight to your website’ranking. g.

Set up Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, LinkedIn profiles or company pages, Pinterest, YouTubchannels,ls and especially Google My Business pages. If your company has separate brands or projects, it may also be worth setting    social media profiles.  .

And it goes without saying that if you create these profiles, you must keep them up to da. e,

How often does Google crawl site? e?

frequency?If your perfectiasks,t brain asksWhatat is the exact Google web crawler frequenc”, no one knows. It depends on your domain authority, youbacklinks,ks and any restrictions. Some factors can waste your crawl budget, such as redirects and pages in your sitemap that no longeexist. t.

In Google’s words, their robot spiders “regularly” crawl web content to update the large index to create the SERPs (Search Engine ResultPage). ).

These crawls result in changes to the SERPs, which are reflected shortly after the search engine’s database is updatedThis may imply that you will notice changes within a few moments to a few days. . Again, no one really knows because it’s all done by a magical algorithm. Okay, it’s not exactly magical, but it’s prettmystical. l.

Usually, the more visitors you get, the more your website will be crawled. Googlebots are not going to waste time crawling sites that are nevevisited. d.

Can I speed up thprocess? s?

Whenever you change a page on your site, sucas byas rewriting it, updating the content, or improving the search engine optimization on the page, you can resubmit the URL in the search consoleUsually,Usually you will breindexeded fairly quickly. In my experience,  takes’s about minute. e.

Improvements to a web page can boost its ranking once it is re-indexed, so it’s worth keeping this imind. d.

While you don’t have direct control over when Google crawls your pages, there are a few things you can do to encouragthem. m.

Sitemaps and errochecking ng

An XML sitemap is a way to ensure that Google Search Console is updatewithon your new content. If you work with a popular content management system like WordPress, you can quickly generate sitemaps and submit them to the searcconsole. Check for mobile usability as well. . You should know that your site is 100% mobi-e friendly. The image here shows minor issues over time, but all of them were fixed when they wernoticed. d.

Page speed and connectivi y.

If Google can’t crawl your site because of   server err  , it will stop crawling your site. If this happens, your rankings may plummet. To clarify, we’re not talking about temporary interruptions here, but if your site is down for an extended period of time, it won’t keep sending bots youway. y.

Benefits of frequent conte t.

If you regularly add new content to your site, Google will learn to crawl it more often. It’s not rockescience. e.

It can be difficult to come up with new content, but the easiest way is to add a blog to your site and populate it with information about youindustry. y.

You can blog about anything you want to bhonest aboutst, but Google will get a fair picture of what your site is about if you keep it relevant. For example, we mainly write abo   Google A   ad  SEO Insigh  , How to Work with Agencies, and everything we’ve done in t   digital agency spa. Internalebacklinking ng

Internal and inbound external links are still important ways to get found on Google. When Google notices that your content is being published and shareonby other platforms, it will rewaryou. u.

However, be careful and avoid spammy directory listings and bla-k hat techniques. The almighty Google can punish and reward you, and black spots are hard to comback from. k.

The Robots.txt fi e.

This is a simple text file that should be in your root directoryOccasionally,ly it’s handled by the host and you can’t edit it, but if you have WordPress and a plugin like Yoast oRankMath,th you should be able to access it directlthere. e.

This file gives instructions to crawlers about which pages to crawl and which to ignore. Again, the aforementioned WordPress plugins can take care of that for you too. If you’re wondering why it’s good to deindex pages, that’s another topic, but not every page is worthy of Google’s attention. We don’t index our categories and tags because they can cannibalise our intentionacontent. t.

If you are not sure how to access or configure this file, please contact an expert. We have experienced WordPress developers and can help witthis. s.

Structuredata ta

Search engines like structured data when crawling and indexing. Add Schema markup to your website to improve your rankings in the SERPs when you submit a page for web crawling. You could even show for a featured snippet, meaning no coveteposition. n.

Need help with quality content or want to make sure your website works well for your business? Talk to our teatoday,ay and we can check your online presence fofree. e.

You may also be interested ngettinget hi-h quality backlinks froGoogle. Andi Wilkinson is the author. on

With over 15 years of web and digital marketing experience, Andi writes and speaks on a variety of B2B topics, helpinbusinesses   grow onli  . MadbyBy Factory is an SEO agency based in ManchesterAnd and PPagencycy in Manchester helps ambitious companieo succeed online.