A web crawler is an automated software program that systematically browses the internet, following hyperlinks from page to page, to discover and collect content for a search engine’s index, or for other purposes like SEO auditing tools.
Web crawlers operate according to rules defined in a site’s robots.txt file, respecting directives about which parts of a site they’re permitted to access, though not all crawlers (particularly some less reputable bots) honor these rules consistently.
Understanding crawler behavior is foundational to technical SEO, since a website’s entire search visibility ultimately depends on crawlers being able to successfully discover, access, and process its content.
Crawler behavior analysis underpins our Technical SEO service.