Crawl Depth in SEO: How to Increase Crawl Efficiency

Despite the monolithic size of Google’s scale (revealed astatine 400 cardinal docs and counting), the volcanic surge of AI-generated contented has caused it to look limitations.

This means that less pages connected your tract whitethorn really marque it onto Google’s SERPs for radical to find organically.

To guarantee your astir important pages get indexed by hunt engines, it’s much important present than ever for SEOs to absorption connected expanding the crawl ratio of their website.

In this post, we’ll amusement you however to marque it happen. We’ll sermon the thought of crawl extent and spell implicit strategies that summation the likelihood that adjacent your little fashionable pages get indexed. 

But first, let’s bash a speedy recap connected how Google crawls and indexes endeavor sites.

Table of Contents:

• How Content Ends Up successful SERPs
• What is Crawl Depth?

• The Difference Between Crawl Depth and Page Depth

• What is Crawl Prioritization?
• 4 Ways to Increase the Crawl Efficiency of Your Site

How Content Ends Up successful SERPs

The hunt engine’s process of uncovering and including web pages successful SERPs consists of 4 steps:

• Crawl, successful which hunt motor bots spell done a website to observe its content. Typically, they bash truthful by pursuing interior links, but crawlers tin besides usage the sitemap for this purpose.
• Render, astatine which stage, the crawler renders each leafage to place and analyse its content. This measurement is each astir learning what a leafage is astir and evaluating its contented (among different things) to find its prime and authority.
• Index, erstwhile the hunt motor includes (or updates) the accusation astir those pages successful its index. 
• Rank, which is each astir associating the leafage successful a applicable presumption for a circumstantial query successful the Google hunt results.

Of the full process, successful this post, we’re acrophobic with the archetypal step: crawl.

Because unless the hunt motor tin access, discover, and crawl a website’s assets, its quality to fertile for applicable keywords volition beryllium severely impacted. 

However, ensuring the crawlability of the tract is conscionable the archetypal step.

Another SEO contented to see is getting the crawler to regularly sojourn little fashionable contented wrong a site’s crawl budget arsenic well, and that’s wherever the contented of crawl extent comes in. 

What is Crawl Depth?

The word crawl extent refers to however galore pages hunt motor bots volition entree and scale connected a tract during a azygous crawl. 

Sites with precocious crawl extent spot galore of their pages crawled and indexed. Those with a debased crawl extent would, typically, person galore of their pages not crawled for agelong periods. 

Crawl extent relates to the site’s architecture. If you see the astir communal website structure, with the homepage astatine the apical of the hierarchy and interior pages linked from it successful tiers, past the crawl extent defines however heavy into those tiers the crawler volition go.

Recommended Reading: The Best Two Website Taxonomy Methods to Boost SEO  

The Difference Between Crawl Depth and Page Depth

Crawl extent is often confused with leafage depth, but the 2 aren’t the same.

The word page depth defines however galore clicks a idiosyncratic needs to scope a circumstantial leafage from the homepage — utilizing the shortest path, of course.

Using the graph supra arsenic an example, the homepage is astatine extent 0, close determination astatine the top. 

Pages close beneath it would beryllium connected extent 1, those close below, extent 2, and truthful on. This is however it's reflected successful our Clarity UI. So, pages linked straight to the homepage are person to the apical of the tract architecture. 

As a rule, pages connected extent 3 and little will, generally, execute poorer successful the integrated hunt results. This is due to the fact that the hunt engines whitethorn person issues reaching and crawling them, wrong the site’s allocated crawl budget. 

This brings america to different issue: crawl prioritization. 

What is Crawl Prioritization?

We’ve discussed however hunt engines find, crawl, and scale content. We’ve besides talked astir however website operation and leafage extent tin impact the process.

But determination is 1 different happening we indispensable interaction upon, the correlation betwixt the site’s architecture and leafage authorization (or to enactment it differently, which pages gain the astir links.) 

Typically, the homepage would gain the bulk of a site’s links. Pages successful tiers 2 and 3 gain fewer links, unfortunately.

However, this shouldn’t travel arsenic a astonishment erstwhile you see the contented of those pages - merchandise categories, merchandise pages, wealth pages, and truthful on.

All of those are neither linkable assets nor pages webmasters would notation successful their contented often. Pages further down - blog and different informational contented - tin gain much links. 

Why is this truthful important? Well, due to the fact that pages with much links pointing to them volition look much popular. As a result, they volition person a higher crawl precedence than pages with less oregon nary links. Those pages tin besides often service arsenic introduction points for crawlers. 

In short, those fashionable pages get crawled much often, and also, supply different introduction constituent for crawlers, aft the homepage. 

Recommended Reading: Homepage SEO: How to Get It Right, Finally

4 Ways to Increase the Crawl Efficiency of Your Site

But what astir the remainder of the pages connected your site? Well, that’s the problem.

Unless those different assets are linked from fashionable pages, their chances of being crawled regularly diminish greatly — particularly since, arsenic we mentioned, Google's scale is facing limits owed to the influx of AI-generated content. 

Of course, it doesn’t mean that crawlers volition ne'er entree those pages (although it tin beryllium existent for assets precise heavy successful the site’s architecture.) But their crawling imaginable mightiness beryllium importantly smaller. 

So, what to do? How tin you summation crawl ratio and prioritize little fashionable content?

Here are 4 effectual strategies to implement.

1. Optimize Your Internal Linking Structure

First, optimize your internal linking structure. Reduce the fig of clicks required to scope pages you privation to person crawled much often. 

Identify opportunities to nexus to people pages from fashionable contented arsenic well. Using seoClarity’s Internal Link Analysis feature, measure the existent links to the page. The screenshot beneath shows the investigation for pages successful extent 3.

Note that each of those assets person lone 1 interior nexus pointing to them, suggesting an accidental to bring them higher successful the site’s hierarchy with immoderate clever tactics.

Recommended Reading: Internal Linking Strategies to Build Site Authority successful SEO 

Also, usage categories and tags, if imaginable successful your CMS, to supply the further operation a crawler could travel to observe this content.

2. Update Your Sitemap Regularly

Create and update the XML sitemap often — this acts arsenic a directory of sorts that includes the database of each URLs you privation the hunt motor to index, on with accusation astir erstwhile a leafage has been updated last.

As a rule, hunt engines volition crawl URLs successful the sitemap much often than others, so, by keeping the sitemap fresh, you summation the chances for those people pages to get crawled. 

Note: seoClarity's built-in tract crawler allows you to make a sitemap based connected the accusation it collects. 

3. Speed Up Your Site

Finally, summation page speed. A accelerated tract volition trim the clip required for crawlers to entree and render pages, resulting successful much assets being accessed during the crawl budget. 

4. Find and Fix Broken Links

Broken links tin importantly impede the crawl ratio of your website by starring hunt motor bots into a dormant end, wasting their invaluable clip and resources that could person been spent indexing invaluable content.

This not lone hinders the find of caller and updated pages but besides negatively impacts your website's wide SEO health, arsenic it signals mediocre tract attraction and lowers idiosyncratic acquisition quality.

Fixing these links ensures that hunt engines tin efficaciously navigate and scale your site's content, which successful crook helps support your site's visibility and ranking successful hunt motor results pages (SERPs).

Learn however to find and hole breached interior links astatine scale here.

Key Takeaways

• Pages with much links are crawled much frequently.
• The bigger the page’s depth, the little its accidental of being crawled wrong the site’s crawl budget.
• To summation the crawl frequence of little authoritative and applicable pages, amended the site’s architecture, update the sitemap regularly, and velocity up the site.

<<This station was primitively published successful June 2020 and has since been updated.>>