Crawlability
The ability of search engine bots to access and crawl a website's pages.
Full definition
Crawlability refers to how easily search engine spiders (bots) can discover and access pages on a website. If a page isn't crawlable, it can't be indexed and won't appear in search results. Common crawlability issues include: pages blocked by robots.txt, 'noindex' meta tags applied incorrectly, pages only accessible via JavaScript rendering (which Googlebot may not execute), broken internal links, and orphaned pages with no links pointing to them. Crawlability is distinct from indexability — a page can be crawlable but not indexable (e.g., if it has a canonical tag pointing elsewhere).
Real-world example
A site redesign accidentally adds 'noindex' to all product pages, causing them to disappear from Google search results within weeks.
Related terms
The number of pages Googlebot will crawl on your website within a given timeframe.
Read definitionAn HTML tag that tells search engines which version of a duplicate or similar page is the preferred one to index.
Read definitionStructured data code added to a webpage to help search engines understand content context and display rich snippets.
Read definitionWebsite visitors who arrive through unpaid search engine results rather than paid ads.
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