How do Googlebots see your site and what do your positions depend on?

As a website owner, it is essential to understand how Google views your website. Knowing the fundamentals of how Google crawls and indexes your website is key to understanding how your website ranks on search engine results pages.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how Googlebots see your website, what your rankings depend on, and how you can optimize your site for better visibility. Read on to learn the basics of the great Google crawl and how you can use it to your advantage.

Rank position in the SERPs

Ranking position is an incredibly important metric for any website, which determines how visible your website will be to searchers, and as a result, how much traffic it will get from them. Generally speaking, the higher up your website is listed, the more traffic it will receive. That’s because most users will not look further than the first few pages of search results when looking for something online. As a result, websites that appear at the top of the SERPs have a significant advantage over those that are lower down in the listings.

Ranking factors vs. SEO optimization

Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing web content in order to improve its visibility on a search engine’s results pages. It includes a variety of tactics, such as keyword research, link building, and content optimization, which are all designed to increase visibility and drive organic traffic to your website.

The development of the strategy, however, depends on the ranking factors. Google’s algorithm takes into account hundreds of different factors when determining how it will rank your website. Generally speaking, these ranking factors can be divided into two main categories: on-page (it involves making sure your content is keyword-rich, properly formatted, and well-structured) and off-page factors (high quality backlinks).

User vs. robots

When it comes to understanding how robots see your site, it’s important to consider the differences between how a human visitor and a robot view your website. The key, however, is to combine these elements.

• Humans tend to respond to visuals, such as colors, layouts, and images, as well as content, such as headlines and body text. They also take into account the website’s overall navigation, load time, and other aspects that influence their experience.
• Robots cannot process emotion. They simply scan the HTML code of a website and look for keywords, titles, descriptions, meta tags, and other signals that help them index and rank websites in the SERPs. They do not see images or videos, they are unable to read body text, and they don’t take into account factors like load time or user experience.

Googlebot – a robot that rules the web

Googlebot is a web crawling robot, which visits websites on the internet to collect information. They crawl the web by finding new links to visit on every page it discovers. It follows those links, collects information and stores it in its index. This information is then used by Google to decide which web pages should appear in its search results.

Robots’ primary task is to crawl websites and index their content. It reads the HTML code of webpages and looks for any links contained therein. It then follows these links to other websites or pages. When it finds something new, it records the information and adds it to its index. Once a web page has been indexed, bot will periodically revisit it to make sure the content is up to date. This process is known as recrawling or reindexing.

By understanding how certain data is organized, it can better serve relevant results to users. Periodically scanning websites, it can help keep the internet clean and safe for users.

How often do web robots visit your website?

The frequency of its visits depends on various factors, such as the content of your website, how often it’s updated, and how popular it is. Robots can visit your website once a day, several times a day or once every few days.

To understand how often Googlebot visits your website, you can check the crawl stats section in Google Search Console. This tool allows you to see when Googlebot last visited your site and which pages it crawled most recently. It also provides an overview of how much time it spent on each page and how many pages it crawled in total.

What does the Google robot see after entering your website?

When a Googlebot enters your website, it begins to look for information and content. Let’s delve into it.

Meta tags

Meta titles should accurately describe the page and should contain relevant keywords so that the page will rank better in the SERPs. Meta descriptions should be brief but compelling, containing no more than 160 characters. Descriptions are intended to provide an accurate summary of the content on the page and give users an idea of what they’ll find if they click on your result in the SERPs.

Content

The goal is to create content that is relevant, informative and engaging for your target audience. Content should be optimized for keywords and provide value to the reader. When Googlebot visits your website, it evaluates the quality of your content, taking into account things like relevancy, grammar, spelling and keyword placement.

Googlebot uses advanced algorithms to scan a webpage and analyze the words on the page. It looks at the structure of the text, headings, images, videos, etc. to determine what type of content is being presented. If the content is relevant to a particular query, then Googlebot may rank it higher in the search results.

ALT attribute

The ALT attribute is a piece of HTML code that can be added to an image or other multimedia element on your website. For Googlebots, the ALT attribute is important because it helps provide context for the image and lets Google understand what the image is about.

Redirects

Redirects are used to take users and search engine crawlers from one URL to another. The proper use of redirects is essential for keeping your site organized and in good standing with Google. If the robot encounters an error – it will lower the page’s ranking position.

Link attributes

The link attributes provide information about the relationships between the pages in your website and helps Googlebot identify which content is related. The anchor text, also known as the link title, is the visible text of a link. It’s important to include relevant keywords within the anchor text because it provides context to Googlebots regarding the page it points to.

Headlines

The headline of your page plays a large role in how Googlebots index your page and how it ranks in the search engine results pages. Robots read the headlines of each page and use them to understand the topic of the content on that page. If the headline is relevant to the content and is concise, clear, and contains important keywords, Googlebot will be able to more accurately index and rank your page.

SEO practices that can positively influence your optimization strategy

• Setting up a Google Search Console account can help you gain insights into how your website is performing in search engine results. Through the account, you can submit and manage a sitemap, monitor clicks and impressions, and receive alerts when crawling errors occur.
• A sitemap is an XML file that contains the URLs of all the pages on your website. Submitting your sitemap to Google will help ensure that your site is indexed quickly and accurately.
• The robots.txt file helps to specify which parts of your website should be crawled by search engine bots. This is important for ensuring that only relevant content is indexed and that pages with sensitive information are not included.
• Link building involves creating links from other websites back to your own. Quality link building helps to improve the authority of your site, which can result in improved rankings in search engine results.

Conclusion

Googlebots are responsible for crawling websites and helping Google rank them in the SERPs. It’s important to understand what they can see, what they don’t see, and how you can optimize your site accordingly. When it comes to SEO, there are several ranking factors that Google takes into consideration. It’s essential to keep an eye on how robots interact with your website. Regularly check your analytics, review the content and structure of your website, and make sure to adjust your strategy according to Googlebot’s needs.