Top 10 Reasons Why Google Isn’t Crawling Your Website

“Google isn’t crawling my website” – if that question keeps you awake the entire night, then you’re not alone. A website that can’t be crawled means it can’t be ranked and is of no use for your business, no matter how appealing the design and informative the content is.

In this blog, you will learn:

1. The top common reasons why Google isn’t crawling your website
2. The technical factors that affect your website’s ranking
3. An important bonus tip

If you’re here on this page, it means you have already searched Google to find your website but ended up seeing nothing. It’s the most frustrating experience that any entrepreneur or website owner can face.

As you have already spent months building a beautiful website that you have always wanted, published the content, and optimized every page, when you expect it to give some leads or sales, then you realize that Google is not crawling website. It feels like opening a store in the middle of a desert.

Without successful crawling, your website is like a treasure hidden in the ocean. No matter how valuable its content is and how many great offerings you’re offering, if it can’t appear at the top, no one can find it.

Understanding how the Google crawler and indexing work can turn out to be the most valuable skill any entrepreneur or marketer can have. In this guide, we will briefly take a look at how Google actually crawls websites, what the obstacles might be blocking it from reaching your website, and how you can fix Google crawl issues and improve your website’s visibility in the search engine results.

Understanding the Important Terms: Crawling, Indexing & Ranking

Before we answer your query, “why Google isn’t crawling my website?”, it’s important to understand a few important terms related to the process.

Imagine a library of an international university that receives hundreds and thousands of new books every week or month. A few of them are the latest editions, some are brand new, and some are so valuable that students always ask for them.

But before any student can locate the book on the shelf, it goes through a detailed process, i.e., the library staff first receives it, then reviews the details, and then finally places it in the correct catalogue and section.

That’s almost the same as how Google works.

Before your website appears in the search results, it passes through a process that is similar to how a library organises its books.

1. At first, Google crawls the website.
2. Then index them.
3. At last, ranked them according to relevant search queries.

If Google can’t crawl your website, it simply means that our website will not appear in the search results. Let’s understand these three important terms in detail.

Stage 1. Crawling – When Google Actually Discovers Your Website

Google crawling is the automated process where Google sends its software programmes, often known as bots or spiders, to browse the web and discover new or updated content on websites. The bot automatically travels across billions of pages, XML sitemaps, and following links. Google bots typically explore those websites more quickly that are easy to access and are properly connected through internal links or sitemaps.

However, issues like broken links, technical SEO issues, and robot.txt restrictions can slow down the crawling process and prevent Google from discovering new content on your website. Ultimately, if the bot fails to crawl your website, then it means indexing will not occur.

Stage 2: Indexing – When Google Understands Your Content

If the Google bot successfully crawls your website, it will carefully analyse your website’s content to determine its relevancy, quality, and overall value. If everything meets Google’s standards, then the bot will store your website in its massive search index—a database where billions of web pages are stored.

And if your website has issues related to technical SEO, thin content or poor-quality information, then the bot will not index your website. In such cases, you may see a message saying, “Crawled – Currently Not Indexed” in your Google Search Console.

In case you notice that your website has been indexed earlier but later gets de-indexed, it means there are some issues that need to be addressed to meet Google’s quality standards.

Stage 3. Ranking – When Google Chooses Where to Appear

It’s the final stage of the journey. Once your page is indexed, Google decides the rank on the results pages based on various factors such as relevance, authority, and user experience. These ranking factors include content quality, search intent, website authority, backlinks, Core Web Vitals, and many other SEO factors.

It’s important to know that every page must be crawled and indexed first to qualify for ranking. Without proper crawling, a website can’t be indexed, and without indexing, a website can’t rank.

New Website → Google Finds URL → Google Bot Crawls → Analyses Content → Indexed → Rank

Top 10 Reasons Why Google Isn’t Crawling Your Website

Even the most appealingly designed website supported with high-quality content can remain invisible in front of the target audience. There can be multiple reasons that can stop the Google bot from discovering and processing your web pages, and knowing all such reasons can be a game-changer for your website’s visibility and success.

As we reveal and discuss the reasons, you should focus on considering them as mistakes, plus an opportunity through which you can optimize your website for better search engine visibility.

1. Robots.txt File is Blocking Googlebot

If you have a robots.txt file, then it can be the primary reason why you may be facing Google bot cannot access website, and being unable to get crawled. It’s because the robots.txt file acts as an instructor that tells the search engine bots which pages they can and cannot crawl.

2. Missing or Incorrect XML Sitemap Issues

An XML sitemap is a file that contains all the website’s important pages and acts as a structural roadmap for Google. If the sitemap is missing, incorrect, outdated, includes broken links, or hasn’t been submitted through Google Search Console, then Google will not be able to see your website content.

3. Website Is Too Slow

Both Google and its bots hate slow-loading websites. Google always gives preferences to fast-loading websites. If your page is taking too long to load, Google may crawl a few pages during each visit, ultimately limiting the number of pages being indexed.

4. Website Has Server Errors

If your website has frequent server errors, such as 500 internal server errors or 503 service unavailable errors, then Google considers your website an unreliable and unstable source of information. If the bot continues facing these errors repeatedly, then it will temporarily stop crawling your website, and then you have to fill out the manual reconsideration request form to get Google to crawl your website again.

5. Website Has Noindex Tag

A no-index tag tells the Google bots not to include that page in the search results. If your website or web pages have a no-index tag, Google may crawl them, but intentionally hide them in the search results. Thus, you must make sure that your website doesn’t have any pages with a no-index tag to improve website crawlability.

6. Thin or Low-Quality Content

Google always gives high priority to valuable and informative content. Pages with thin, useless, or duplicate content may not be crawled or indexed by Google. Hence, it’s important to regularly update and improve your website content to ensure that Google considers it valuable and worthy of being crawled.

7. DNS Issues

Before visiting any website, the Google bot tries to locate the server with the help of DNS. If the DNS is not properly configured or has any issues, then Google may not be able to crawl your website. Thus, make sure that your DNS settings are properly configured to ensure that Google is able to crawl and navigate through your website.

8. Broken Internal Links

Bots use the internal links in your website as a source to navigate through different pages and index them. If the links are broken, then the bot will not be able to navigate, which will ultimately hinder the crawling process and may prevent some pages from being crawled.

9. Plugins Are Accidentally Blocking Google Bot

Plugins are designed to simplify website management. But, somehow, wrongly configured plugins can unintentionally block the Google Bot from crawling your website. Caching or firewall plugins can also impose several restrictions on the Google bot to access your website. Thus, ensure all the plugins are properly configured and not blocking the Google bot in any way.

10. Missing On-Page SEO Parameters

While on-page SEO parameters don’t directly affect the crawlability of the website, it still plays an important role. Missing or poorly optimised on-page SEO techniques will make it harder for Google to understand your website’s structure and content, which can ultimately impact its ability to crawl and index your website effectively. Ensuring that on-page SEO parameters will influence the crawl efficiency.

Bonus Tip: How Do I Force Google To Crawl My Website?

At FirstAdz, we always aim to share transparency and the best results, whether it’s our clients or our blog readers. Below, we have shared a secret roadmap that will help you to force Google to crawl your website faster. These are the tips that no one will tell you about, so make sure to implement them for better results.

Step 1. Check Your Robots.Txt File: Make sure Google bot is able to access the important pages of your website.

Step 2. Submit XML Sitemap: Navigate to Google Search Console and submit a clean and updated XML sitemap.

Step 3. Submit Indexing Request: Use the URL inspection tool to request crawling and indexing of the specific pages that you want Google to do on priortize.

Step 4. Fix Crawl Errors: Get rid of 404, 500, DNS, and redirect errors that affect the Google bot’s accessibility.

Step 5. Improve Internal Linking: Focus on creating a clear and organised internal linking structure that allows the Google bot to easily navigate to different pages on your website.

Step 6. Build Quality Backlinks: Earn quality backlinks from trustworthy websites. This will force Google to recognise your website as a reliable source of information.

Step 7. Remove Broken Links: Replace or delete all the broken links on your website to ensure a seamless user experience and to maintain credibility with Google’s ranking system.

Step 8. Update Content Regularly: Update all the existing content and publish new content to keep your website fresh and engaging for both users and search engines.

Step 9. Monitor Google Search Console: Monitor and regularly review crawl reports and resolve issues before they impact your website’s performance.

Conclusion

Hope reading this blog must have given you the answer to your query, i.e., “Why Google isn’t crawling your website?” By optimising your website and fixing all the issues mentioned above, you can easily improve the crawlability of your website and ensure that Google is regularly crawling and indexing your website and its pages.

Need expert hands? We, at FirstAdz, are a team of specialized SEO experts who hold the expertise to get any website indexed and crawled, and even guarantee a significant growth in traffic over time. So, don’t wait; get in touch now.