Googlebot
Google's web crawler. The bot that discovers, crawls, and indexes your pages. Understanding how Googlebot sees your site is the foundation of technical SEO.
Why It Matters
Googlebot is your site's most important visitor. If Googlebot can't access, render, or understand your pages, nothing else matters - no amount of great content or link building will help a page that Google can't see.
Googlebot comes in two main flavours: the standard web crawler and the mobile crawler (which is now the primary crawler under mobile-first indexing). It renders JavaScript, follows links, respects robots.txt directives, and reports back to Google's indexing systems.
In Practice
Think of Googlebot as a user with specific limitations. It can't fill out forms, click buttons that require JavaScript interaction, or access content behind login walls. Design your site so that Googlebot can reach all important content through straightforward HTML links.
Use Google Search Console's URL Inspection tool to see exactly what Googlebot sees when it crawls your pages. Compare the rendered HTML to what human visitors see - any differences could mean lost content or indexing issues.
Monitor your server logs for Googlebot visits to understand crawl patterns and identify pages it visits frequently or ignores entirely.
Related Terms
Glossary
Crawling
How search engine bots discover and download your pages - the first step to ranking.
Glossary
Crawl Budget
How many pages Google will crawl on your site in a given timeframe.
Glossary
Robots.txt
A file telling search engine crawlers which parts of your site they can access.
Glossary
Mobile-First Indexing
Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking - not desktop.
Glossary
JavaScript SEO
Optimising JS-heavy sites so search engines can actually see and index the content.
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