Do you wonder what are crawl errors and do they matter for your website? In short, these are when search engine bots hit a roadblock trying to get to your site, like a dead end in a maze. They do matter because they can stop your content from ranking and being found by your target audience. This post will go into crawl errors, how they affect your SEO and user experience and how to fix them.
What are Crawl Errors
Crawl errors are a real pain for website owners but what are they? In short, crawl errors are when search engine bots hit a snag trying to access or navigate your web pages. Imagine a courier trying to deliver a package to a building with no clear entrance – that’s what search engine bots feel when they hit crawl errors. These can be DNS issues, which are like having the wrong or no address of the building or a 404 error which is like finding an empty lot where the building should be.
But every error is unique. For example, if a robots.txt file doesn’t load it’s like a doorman refusing entry to the courier which prevents Googlebot from accessing your site. ‘Access denied’ errors happen when Google is blocked from certain pages and ‘not followed’ errors happen when Googlebot can’t trace URLs to their end destination. Clearly understanding these errors is the first step to fixing them.
While the broad term ‘crawl errors’ covers any issue that prevents search engine bots from accessing or indexing content, it’s more helpful to get specific. For example, one common type of crawl error is the 404 error which means the URL was not found. Imagine a search engine bot as a librarian, constantly scanning bookshelves (websites) for new books (web pages). If the librarian finds a spot on the shelf with a missing book (404 error), they can’t index that book for library users (web users) to find.
Other URL errors include:
- ‘access denied’ errors due to Flash
- redirects
- JavaScript errors
- incorrect URL structures
- 403 forbidden errors
- redirect loops
Understanding these errors helps in fixing them and creating a search engine friendly website.
Site Errors vs URL Errors
Now let’s get into the difference between site errors and URL errors. Think of your website as a big building, each webpage as a room. Site errors are when the whole building is inaccessible, URL errors are when specific rooms are locked or blocked.
In terms of site errors, these are big issues that prevent search engine bots from even getting to your site, including DNS errors, server errors and robots.txt fetch errors. URL errors are specific to individual pages and happen when Google can’t crawl or read a page. This is different from site errors which affect the whole site.
Google categorizes crawl errors into these two to allow for more targeted fixing of these errors. In short, understanding the difference between site errors and URL errors is key to diagnosing and fixing crawl errors.
Why Crawl Errors Matter for Your Site
Now that we’ve covered what are crawl errors and types of crawl errors, let’s talk about why they matter for your website. Crawl errors are like roadblocks that prevent search engine bots from accessing your web pages. This hinders the indexing of your content and reduces the chances of new content to be discovered and shown in search results. In simple terms, crawl errors can hide your web pages from search engines and decrease organic traffic and impact your website’s ranking.
But the impact of crawl errors goes beyond SEO. They can also affect user experience and cause frustration and users to leave your site. So it’s important to fix crawl errors especially on pages with valuable content to prevent losing ranking and visibility for those pages.
In short, preventing new crawl errors is key to user experience and search engine friendly site.
Search Engine Optimisation
To drive home the importance of fixing crawl errors let’s look at their impact on a critical part of your website’s online presence – search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO is all about making your website attractive to search engines and crawling is a part of that. Search engines use bots to find updated content and index web pages for higher search engine results page (SERP) ranking.
But crawl errors can throw a wrench in the works. 404 errors don’t affect indexing or ranking but you need to actively manage other errors to maintain website SEO. Any content not accessible to Googlebot like content behind forms or logins can lead to limited indexing and negatively impact search engine ranking.
So regular optimization for page speed and performance is key to preventing crawl errors caused by slow page load and preserve SEO efforts.
User Experience
Crawl errors not only affect how search engines see your website but also how users interact with it. When users encounter a crawl error like 404 page it can cause frustration and may lead to user to leave the site. Imagine a user clicking on a link expecting to find valuable content and instead gets a “page not found” message. That’s frustrating and may make users not to explore further or come back to your site.
But website owners can minimize the negative user experience caused by crawl errors. For example:
- Offer interesting 404 responses
- Provide lists of links to visit
- Help visitors who encountered 404 page
- Keep users on the site
- Direct them to other valuable resources on the site
This not only keeps users on your site but also gives you the opportunity to direct them to other valuable resources on your website.
Finding Crawl Errors with Google Search Console
Now that we know what are crawl errors and their impact, how do we find them? One tool that can help us is Google Search Console. This tool has been updated to include a Crawl Errors feature that can now detect and report more types of errors. This is like having a security camera in your building that alerts you whenever there’s an issue.
Crawl errors are found in the coverage section of Google Search Console which includes errors like ‘404 error’ and ‘submitted URL has crawl issue’. Regularly check your site’s index coverage reports and crawl logs in Google Search Console to detect and fix crawl errors early. In short Google Search Console is like a security guard that’s always monitoring your website for crawl errors and will alert you when there’s one.
Coverage Report
Google Search Console’s Coverage report is a powerful tool to find and understand crawl errors. This report shows a visual graph along with counts of indexed and non-indexed URLs, their current status in Google’s index. This allows website owners to see which pages are being crawled by search engine bots and which ones are having issues.
You can also filter index results in the Coverage report by sitemap submitted to Google Search Console including by specific sitemap URLs. The report includes detailed report of crawl errors and their issues which can be used to identify problems that needs to be fixed to improve website health.
You can also check individual pages for indexing issues and crawl errors using the URL Inspection Tool and errors will show for the last 3 months. In short the Coverage report and URL Inspection Tool gives you a complete picture of your website’s health in terms of crawl errors.
Error Reports
Once crawl errors are found, the next step is to analyze them. Google Search Console’s error reports shows the top 1000 errors and allows website owners to:
- Sort, filter and prioritize the most actionable errors
- Have a to-do list of issues to fix
- Make sure the most critical and impactful errors are fixed first
Understanding why pages are not indexed as described in the ‘Why pages aren’t indexed’ table helps prioritize what can be fixed. The URL Inspection Tool provides detailed information about errors like 404 HTTP status, what Google saw on the problematic page. The ‘Fetch as Googlebot’ feature allows website owners to simulate how Googlebot sees a page, to verify fixes or understand the root cause of errors. Once an error is confirmed fixed, user can mark it as ‘fixed’ in Webmaster Tools so the error report will be updated.
In summary analyzing error reports is part of the process of fixing crawl errors and improving website health.
How to Fix Common Crawl Errors
We’ve discussed how to identify and analyze crawl errors, now let’s talk about how to fix them. Fortunately there are several ways to combat these issues. These are server errors, DNS issues and broken links.
Fixing these errors can be daunting but tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider, Raven-Tools Site-Auditor and Moz Professional Site Crawl can help detect and fix DNS and server errors that’s preventing crawlers from accessing your site. The same tools can also help identify and fix broken links, another common source of crawl errors. After fixing the issues, website owners can request validation in Google Search Console’s Coverage report to confirm that the errors are fixed.
In short fixing common crawl errors is manageable with the right tools and strategies.
Fixing Server Errors
Server errors like 5xx errors can slow down your website’s crawling rate and prevent search engines from discovering and indexing your content. If these errors persists Googlebot might give up crawling your site and impact your search rankings and SEO performance. So it’s important to fix server errors as soon as possible.
To do this:
- Review server logs to diagnose the exact issue and fix the configuration problem.
- Improve server capabilities including load balancing to handle traffic surge and prevent 5xx errors.
- Deploy a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to reduce server errors and improve server uptime.
- Upgrade server resources to maintain better server uptime.
In short fixing server errors is like tuning up a car engine to make it run smoothly, to improve your website’s performance and reliability.
Fixing DNS Errors
Another type of crawl errors is DNS errors. These errors are related to Domain Name System and can prevent search engines from connecting to the domain and access the website. It’s like having a mislabeled mailbox; if the postman can’t find your mailbox he won’t be able to deliver your mail.
To fix DNS issues website owners can use Fetch as Google and check with their DNS service providers including their dns server. Also make sure server error codes are displayed correctly. In short fixing DNS errors means search engine bots can find and access your website and crawl and index your content.
Fixing Broken Links
Broken links are another common source of crawl errors. These are links that point to pages or resources that don’t exist, often due to typos in the link or when the linked page is deleted or moved. It’s like a road that leads to a dead end and search engine bots can’t reach the destination page. Some common causes of broken links are:
- Typo in the URL
- Pages deleted or moved without proper redirect
- Website structure or URL format changed
- External sites linking to non-existent pages on your site
To fix broken links on your website you can use various tools and techniques.
Automated on-page crawl tests can find internal broken links within the website and fix them immediately. On-page tools are also available for automated broken links and redirects check to find on-page errors that can’t be found through regular use. To fix broken links you can edit the existing link, recreate the missing page or implement 301 redirect to a different but relevant page on the website.
In short fixing broken links is like fixing broken roads so search engine bots can navigate your website smoothly.
Proactive Measures to Prevent New Crawl Errors
While fixing existing crawl errors is important, it’s also important to take proactive measures to prevent new crawl errors from happening. This means:
- Review site information architecture regularly
- Keep content organized and easily accessible
- Implement redirects carefully knowing the cause of crawl errors to avoid compounding or creating new issues.
In short prevention is better than cure and this applies to crawl errors; crawl errors matter.
Monitoring and Audits
Monitoring and audits are key to preventing crawl errors. By using site crawler tools like Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl website owners can find DNS errors before search engine bots index them. Regular automated site crawls can also find broken links and prevent crawl errors.
Analyzing server access logs gives you valuable information on failed requests that lead to crawl errors and gives you insight on bot crawl issues that can’t be found elsewhere. In short monitoring and audits are like regular health check-ups to keep your website in shape and crawl error free.
Website Maintenance Best Practices
Following website maintenance best practices can help prevent crawl errors. This includes regular link testing and fixing broken links which should be part of website maintenance. Also using version control and doing thorough QA testing before deploying any changes to the website can prevent introducing new crawl errors.
Accurate implementation of redirects during website updates ensures users and search engines are directed correctly and reduces 404 errors. Moreover continuous optimization of page speed and overall site performance is important to keep a crawlable and error free website environment. In short website maintenance and following best practices is like keeping your building clean and well maintained so users and search engine bots have a pleasant and error free experience.
Advanced Tools and Resources
While Google Search Console is great for finding and fixing crawl errors, there are other advanced tools and resources that can give you a deeper analysis. SEO professionals recommend using Google Search Console with other tools like:
- Screaming Frog
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Moz Pro
- DeepCrawl
- Sitebulb
- Xenu’s Link Sleuth
These tools can help you fix crawl errors by identifying and correcting them thoroughly including txt file reports.
Site crawl tools like Screaming Frog and DeepCrawl can be used proactively to find crawl errors and accessibility issues before they affect search engine crawling. In short using advanced tools for deeper analysis is like having a team of experts on your side to help you find and fix crawl errors more efficiently.
Using Third Party SEO Tools
Third party SEO tools can give you more insights and capabilities to find and fix crawl errors. For example SEMrush’s Site Audit feature gives you detailed reports and suggestions to fix crawl errors, improve site structure and SEO. The tool allows scheduled crawls and can send email updates so you can monitor site health.
SEMrush’s Site Audit tool finds issues that affect site crawlability and gives you an ‘Overview’ report with specific suggestions to fix the problems. In short using third party SEO tools is like having a personal trainer who gives you personalised advice and strategies to improve your website’s SEO and fix crawl errors.
Webmaster Tools
And lastly integrating webmaster tools like Bing Webmaster Tools can help in finding and fixing crawl errors. Bing Webmaster Tools has features to find crawl errors that complements Google Search Console for a more detailed diagnosis.
Integrating Bing Webmaster Tools with your existing SEO strategy can help in finding and fixing crawl errors when used with other SEO tools. In short integrating webmaster tools is like having another set of eyes to give you a different perspective and additional insights into crawl errors.
Case Studies: Fixing Real World Crawl Errors
To illustrate the points above let’s look at some real world case studies of fixing crawl errors. These case studies show how businesses have found and fixed crawl errors and improved their website performance and SEO. These case studies are practical examples and can be useful for website owners who are facing similar issues.
These case studies show:
- Regular monitoring and auditing
- Using advanced SEO tools
- Following best practices for site maintenance
- Fixing crawl errors quickly
These have been proven to work in real world scenarios as shown in the case studies. They improve website visibility and user experience.
Conclusion
In summary crawl errors may seem small but can affect website performance, search engine visibility and user experience. But with a clear understanding of what crawl errors are and how to find, analyze and fix them website owners can fix crawl errors. Regular monitoring and auditing, following best practices for site maintenance and using advanced SEO tools are all part of a complete strategy to prevent and fix crawl errors. Remember in the war against crawl errors knowledge is your best weapon.
FAQs
What are crawl errors?
Crawl errors happen when search engine bots can’t access or crawl your web pages. This affects your website’s visibility.
How do I find crawl errors?
You can find crawl errors using Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs and SEMrush. The insights from these tools will help you fix the issues.
What’s the difference between site errors and URL errors?
Site errors prevent search engine bots from accessing your entire website while URL errors are specific to individual pages. So site errors can have a bigger impact on your website’s visibility.
How do I prevent new crawl errors?
To prevent new crawl errors monitor and audit your website regularly, follow best practices and implement careful redirects. This will keep your website healthy.
What are advanced crawl error tools?
You can use tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz Pro and Sitebulb to do advanced crawl error analysis besides Google Search Console. These tools will give you more in depth insights into crawl errors.
