SEO
Googlebot
Google's automated robot that reads (crawls) websites for search results.
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The Tradie Take
Googlebot is the apprentice who goes through your workshop cataloguing every tool and every job you've done. He makes notes, takes photos, and reports back to the boss (Google) on what you've got. If your workshop is locked (site blocked) or the catalogue is a mess (broken site structure), he can't do his job.
Definition
Googlebot is the automated software that Google uses to discover and read pages on the internet. Think of it as a robot that clicks on every link it can find, reads the content, and brings it back to Google to be indexed and ranked. If Googlebot can't access your site, your pages won't appear in search results. Period.
How It Works
- 1 Googlebot starts crawling from known URLs (from sitemaps and previous crawls)
- 2 It follows links from page to page, discovering new content
- 3 It reads the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and content of each page
- 4 The information is added to Google's index, where algorithms decide how to rank it
Tips for Tradies
- Make sure your site doesn't accidentally block Googlebot in robots.txt
- A clean site structure with a sitemap helps Googlebot find all your pages
- If you update a page, request re-crawling in Search Console