What is a crawler?
A web crawler, also commonly referred to as a spider or bot, is an automated software program that systematically browses the World Wide Web.
Crawlers are used by search engines to index websites and provide relevant search results for users. By gathering and analysing information from various web pages and analysing it, crawlers help search engines create an organised database of all the online web pages.
Crawlers typically use algorithms to detect changes in web pages, such as new content or updated information. Crawlers can also collect data for market research and other purposes. Crawlers work by following links from one page to another, reading content from each page they visit and then returning the collected data to the source website.
Crawlers are essential for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), as they determine how well webpages are ranked on search engine results pages. Crawlers can also detect broken links or dead pages, preventing users from having a poor online experience.