What is Googlebot?

Googlebot is the web crawler used by Google to discover, crawl, and index content from websites across the internet. It’s a type of bot, also known as a spider or crawler, that automatically visits web pages, follows links, and gathers information to be stored in Google’s search index.

There are different types of Googlebot, including:

  • Googlebot Desktop – simulates how a page is viewed on a desktop device
  • Googlebot Smartphone – simulates how a page is viewed on a mobile device

Google primarily uses the mobile version to crawl websites, in line with its mobile-first indexing approach.

Why Googlebot Matters

Googlebot plays a central role in how your website is discovered and ranked by Google. If Googlebot can’t access your content, it won’t be indexed, which means it won’t appear in search results.

Understanding how Googlebot works can help you:

  • Ensure important pages are being crawled and indexed
  • Avoid blocking valuable content with robots.txt or noindex tags
  • Identify and fix crawl errors using tools like Google Search Console
  • Optimise your site structure and internal linking for better visibility

Googlebot also respects certain rules, such as crawl-delay and disallowed paths in your robots.txt file, which give webmasters some control over crawling activity.

Example in Use

You publish a new services page on your website and include it in your main navigation. Googlebot follows internal links to discover the new page, crawls the content, and adds it to the index. Once indexed, it can start appearing in search results for relevant queries.

You can monitor how Googlebot interacts with your site using reports in Google Search Console, such as the crawl stats and coverage reports.

Related Terms

Bryn Roberts

Bryn has 10+ years in marketing and 20 in business development, helping businesses grow through strategy, creativity, and cross-industry insight. He’s helped companies across telecom, entertainment, and events.