What is Googlebot: How It Crawls & Indexes Websites

What is Googlebot?

Googlebot is Google's web crawler (also referred to as a web spider or web crawler) that crawls the internet with the goal of finding and indexing content for Google Search. It allows Google to analyze what is on web pages so that Google can show relevant search results.

Googlebot Names and User Agent Strings

Other Verified Bots in the Industry

1. Bingbot

   - User Agent: `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)`

2. Yahoo Slurp

   - User Agent: `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)`

3. Baidu Spider

   - User Agent: `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Baiduspider/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html)`

4. Yandex Bot

   - User Agent: `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)`

5. DuckDuckBot

   - User Agent: `DuckDuckGo/0.1 (+https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot)`

6. Sogou Spider

   - User Agent: `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Sogou Spider; http://www.sogou.com/docs/help/webmasters.htm)`

7. Exabot

   - User Agent: `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Exabot/3.0; +http://www.exabot.com/go/robot)`

8. Facebot

   - User Agent: `facebookexternalhit/1.1`

How Googlebot Crawls and Indexes the Web: Step by Step

1. Crawling:

   - Googlebot starts with a list of web addresses from previous crawls and sitemaps provided by webmasters.

   - It uses algorithms to determine which sites to crawl, how often to crawl them, and how many pages to fetch from each site.

2. Fetching:

   - Googlebot sends HTTP requests to the web servers of the identified pages and retrieves the content.

3. Parsing:

   - The fetched content is parsed to understand the structure and content of the page, including text, images, and links.

4. Indexing:

   - The parsed data is stored in Google's index, which is a massive database of all the content that Google has crawled.

   - Google analyzes the content for relevance and assigns it a ranking based on various factors.

5. Updating:

   - Googlebot regularly revisits sites to check for updates or changes in content, ensuring the index remains current.

How to Control Crawling by Googlebot

1. Robots.txt File:

   - Use the `robots.txt` file to instruct Googlebot which pages or sections of your site should not be crawled.

   - Example:

     User-agent: Googlebot

     Disallow: /private/

2. Meta Tags:

   - Use the `noindex` meta tag to prevent specific pages from being indexed.

   - Example:

     <meta name="robots" content="noindex">

3. URL Parameters:

   - Use URL parameters to manage how Googlebot interacts with dynamic content.

4. Google Search Console:

   - Use the URL Inspection Tool to request indexing or to remove URLs from Google's index.

How to Test Whether It's Really Googlebot or Not

1. Check the User-Agent:

   - Verify that the User-Agent string matches Googlebot's User-Agent strings listed above.

2. Reverse DNS Lookup:

   - Perform a reverse DNS lookup on the IP address of the requesting bot to ensure it resolves to Google.

3. Forward DNS Lookup:

   - Conduct a forward DNS lookup on the resolved domain to confirm it points back to Google.

Crawl Stats Report in Search Console

The Crawl Stats Report in Google Search Console provides insights into how Googlebot interacts with your site. Key components include:

1. Total Requests:

   - The total number of requests made by Googlebot to your site over a specified period.

2. Successful Requests:

   - The number of successful requests (HTTP status 200).

3. Redirects:

   - The number of requests that resulted in redirects (HTTP status 3xx).

4. Errors:

   - The number of requests that resulted in errors (HTTP status 4xx and 5xx) indicating issues with crawling.

5. Average Response Time:

   - The average time it takes for your server to respond to requests from Googlebot.

6. Crawl Frequency:

   - Insights into how often Googlebot crawls your site, helping you understand the crawl budget.

By analyzing this report, webmasters can identify potential issues affecting crawling and indexing and take corrective actions to improve their site's visibility in search results.