Synonyms: Google crawler
Googlebot is the web crawler used by Google to discover and index content from websites for its search engine. This automated software, also known as a crawler or spider, continuously scans the internet, following links and gathering information from webpages to include in Google’s search index.
Googlebot plays a crucial role in how websites appear in search results. Here’s how it works:
- Crawling: Googlebot visits websites by following links, starting from known URLs and moving to new or updated pages.
- Indexing: After crawling, Googlebot processes the content it finds, such as text, images, and metadata, and adds it to Google’s search index. This is what makes your website searchable on Google.
- Ranking: Googlebot also helps determine where a website should rank in search results based on its content quality, relevance, and SEO factors.
Website owners can control how Googlebot crawls their site by using robots.txt files or adding meta tags like noindex to prevent certain pages from being crawled or indexed.
Googlebot is essential for ensuring that new and updated content on websites is visible to users through Google Search.