A crawler is an automated robot that browses the web following links to discover, analyze and index your store’s pages in search engines. These digital explorers, like Googlebot, determine which pages deserve to appear in search results.
For online retailers, optimizing crawler visits ensures your new products and updates are quickly discovered and indexed by Google.
How Crawlers Work
Crawlers start with a list of known URLs. This initial queue comes from submitted sitemaps, external links, and crawl history.
When visiting each page, crawlers extract and analyze content. HTML, text, images, links, everything gets scanned to understand page nature and quality.
Discovered links feed the crawler queue. Each new link found becomes a future exploration destination, perpetuating the process.
Crawlers respect robots.txt directives. This file tells them which site areas to explore or avoid.
Main Crawlers to Know
Googlebot and Its Variants
Googlebot remains the most important crawler for visibility. It exists in desktop and mobile versions, the latter being priority since Mobile-First Index.
Googlebot Images specifically explores your product visuals. This specialized crawler feeds Google Images, an important e-commerce traffic source.
Googlebot Video analyzes video content. Product demonstrations and tutorials can thus appear in enriched results.
Other Important Crawlers
Bingbot feeds Microsoft’s Bing engine. Though less dominant, this crawler generates non-negligible traffic.
SEO crawlers like SEMrushBot or AhrefsBot collect data for analysis tools. Blocking them can limit your competitive monitoring.
Facebook and Twitter use their own crawlers. They generate previews when sharing your products on social networks.
Crawl Budget and Its Importance
Crawl budget represents resources Google allocates to exploring your site. Page numbers and visit frequency depend on this limited budget.
Your site’s authority influences crawler budget. The more recognized your store, the more resources Google invests in exploration.
Content freshness attracts crawlers. Regularly updated sites benefit from more frequent visits.
Server speed directly impacts crawl budget. Slow sites consume more crawler resources, reducing pages explored.
Optimizing Crawler Visits
Technical Architecture
Simplify URL structure to facilitate crawler work. Logical, shallow paths accelerate exploration.
Eliminate unnecessary pages wasting crawler budget. Infinite filters, duplications, and low-value pages dilute resources.
Optimize server response speed. Efficient crawlers explore more pages in allotted time.
Signals and Directives
XML sitemaps efficiently guide crawlers to important pages. Update regularly with new content.
Use robots.txt to block areas without SEO value. Login pages, carts, and complex filters don’t need crawling.
Meta robots tags refine control. “Nofollow” prevents crawlers from following certain links, preserving budget for essentials.
Analyzing Crawler Activity
Server logs reveal exact crawler behavior. Frequency, visited pages, and response codes trace their activity.
Google Search Console reports crawl statistics. Daily crawled pages and average download time indicate crawl health.
Monitoring tools detect anomalies. Sudden spikes or drops in crawler activity signal technical problems.
Analyzing non-crawled pages identifies issues. Orphan or unintentionally blocked pages escape crawlers.
Managing Crawlers on Prestashop
Prestashop’s robots.txt needs customization. Default configurations may block important crawler resources.
Optimize canonical URLs to guide crawlers. Avoid them wasting time on identical page variants.
Manage pagination to preserve crawler budget. Use rel=”next” and rel=”prev” to indicate page structure.
Monitor module impact on crawling. Some extensions generate infinite URLs unnecessarily consuming crawler budget.
Crawlers remain essential allies for SEO. Their optimization ensures every important store page receives deserved Google attention.