Understanding how Googlebot works: definition and optimisation

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Googlebot

When it comes to natural search engine optimisation, understanding how the search engines is essential.

This requires knowledge of indexing robotsas the Googlebot.

In this article, we'll explain what it is, what's at stake and how to optimise it to improve your positioning on the internet. Google.

What is the Googlebot?

Le Googlebot is a indexing robot used by the Google search engine to regularly explore, analyse and index web pages published on the Internet.

This process enables the search engine to offer relevant results to Internet users when they make a query. The robot explores the pages of a site and follows the links it finds in order to discover other pages to index.

How the indexing robot works

When the Googlebot visits your site, it uses various exploration methods to collect all the information available. The aim is to add or update indexed information on a regular basis. The robot's main exploration methods are as follows:

• La crawlability - Site accessibility for the robot, whatever the content structure (text, images, videos, etc.).
• La exploration depth - The number of depth levels covered by the robot to follow the links.
• The files sitemap XML - Providing an ordered list of site pages to be crawled and indexed. This method greatly facilitates the robot's work, by directly indicating the location of the resources to be consulted without the need to follow all the internal links.

It is important to point out that the Googlebot can access all parts of a site, including those that are not authorised to regular visitors. To avoid this, you can use a robots.txtwhich explicitly tells the robot which areas to consider and which to ignore during its exploration.

Why optimise your site for Googlebot?

To improve your ranking on Google, you need to optimise the way the indexing robot visits your site. In fact, good natural referencing depends above all on effective and exhaustive indexing of your content. Here are some of the benefits of optimising the Googlebot's visit:

• A better visibility on search engines.
• A process offaster indexing of your content.
• A fall in bounce rateThis is due to an improvement in the quality of the results offered to Internet users and a better presentation of the pages.
• A increased brand awareness with your target audience.

How can I get the most out of the Googlebot?

There are a number of things you can do to improve the indexing robot's visit to your site:

1. Optimise your internal links: take care to avoid broken links or leading to 404 errors. Instead, give preference to links pointing to relevant and complementary content to make it easier for the robot to navigate.
2. Update your XML sitemaps regularly: These files allow the robot to know the precise location of each page on your site, as well as how often it is updated. To guarantee a good crawl, remember to submit these files directly in the Search Console from Google.
3. Work on the structure of your site: make sure that the URL your pages are clear and well structured, so that they are easy for the robot to understand.
4. Make your site mobile-friendly: With the increasing use of mobile devices for browsing the internet, Google is now giving priority to "mobile-first" sites in its indexing process.
5. Avoid duplicate content : the indexing robot penalises sites that offer content that is identical or too similar to existing content. Take care with your content and make sure it is unique.

By taking these different points into account, you can greatly improve the effectiveness of the Googlebot on your site to promote a better positioning on the search engine.

Managing the frequency of Googlebot visits

The Googlebot may visit your site more or less frequently depending on a number of criteria, such as :

• The popularity and authority of your site: the more your site is recognised as a reference in its field, the more often the robot will be tempted to visit it.
• How often you update your content: if you regularly publish new articles or updates, the robot will index your site more frequently.
• The size of your site: large sites with many pages are generally visited more often than small sites with little content.

To encourage the Googlebot to visit your site more often, you need to work on these different aspects. Don't hesitate to enrich your site with relevant, regularly updated contentto invest in the " Offsite SEO (in particular via netlinking) to gain authority, and to produce unique contentenriching and adapted to your audience target.