Search Off the Record

What is a web crawler, really?

Mar 14, 2024

Join the hosts as they discuss web crawling with an expert, debunking myths and navigating indexing challenges. Explore the evolution of crawling, managing crawl limits, and the importance of quality over quantity. Dive into paginated pages, crawlability, and optimization methods for faster crawling. Discover how content quality impacts crawling schedules and indexing decisions.

30:05

Creator website

Episode guests

Dave Smart

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Understanding crawl budgets is crucial for efficient indexing.

Focusing on indexing valuable content over every page is key.

Deep dives

Introduction of Dave Smart and his Background

Dave Smart, a product expert in web development and tech SEO based in the UK, joins the podcast. He discusses his experience as a product expert since 2016 and how he got involved due to questions about sites, leading to his participation in the program.

Introduction

4min

Exploring the World of Web Crawling

10min

Navigating the Complexities of Web Crawling

7min

Optimizing Web Content Crawling Methods

4min

Quality Signals and Web Crawling

5min

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman take a deep dive into crawling the web: what is a web crawler, and how does it really work? Listen along as the Search team is joined by an expert web developer in the SEO community, Dave Smart, for an in-depth and technical discussion of all things crawling, and maybe dispel some myths along the way.

Resources:

Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr070-transcript

Managing your crawl budget → https://goo.gle/3IzRZxl

Dave Smart on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/3wPSuRA

Tame the Bots → https://goo.gle/4cfCQ1P

Search Central Help Forum → https://goo.gle/sc-forum

Indexing API docs → https://goo.gle/3v8yVU0

Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

#SOTRpodcast

Speaker: Gary Illyes, Lizzi Sassman

Products Mentioned: Search Off The Record