Crawling #crawling
Crawling is the first step before indexing: search engines and AI bots discover URLs and fetch them. Slow, broken, or unreachable pages waste crawl budget and delay or prevent indexing. These guides cover how crawlers work, how to control them with robots.txt and internal links, and how to audit your site like a crawler does.
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Why Pages Get Deindexed (and How to Diagnose It with a Crawl)
Hundreds of pages dropped from Google overnight and you have no idea why. Here is what 'deindexed' actually means, the eight causes that explain almost every case, and a 15 minute crawl-based triage to find yours.
XML Sitemaps at Scale: Build, Split, and Validate Without Quiet Errors
An XML sitemap tells crawlers which URLs you want indexed. Learn the spec, the 50,000 URL split rule, what belongs in or out, and how to validate yours.
The Complete Guide to robots.txt: Rules, Examples, and AI Crawlers
robots.txt controls what search engines and AI crawlers can access. Learn the syntax, common patterns, and how to handle GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot.
Best SEO Crawlers in 2026: Free, Open Source, and Commercial Tools Compared
Compare free, open source, and commercial SEO crawlers. What each catches, when each wins, and how to pick the right tool for your site in 2026.
What Are Redirect Chains and How to Fix Them
Redirect chains slow down crawling, waste link equity, and confuse search engines. Learn what they are, why they happen, and how to find and fix them.
How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website
Broken links hurt SEO and user experience. Learn how to find, categorize, and fix broken links on your website with practical strategies.