15 Most Common Web Crawlers in 2024: What You Need to Know

For people who own websites, work in SEO, or build websites, there are many web crawlers to know about. It’s important to understand how they work, make your site easy for them to read, and keep your data safe.

This guide will teach you about the 15 most common web crawlers in 2024. You’ll learn what they do, how they’re different, and why they matter for your website. Whether you’re new to websites or an SEO expert, this guide will help you work with web crawlers and improve your site.

What Are Web Crawlers and How Do They Work?

Web crawlers are computer programs that browse websites on the Internet. They work independently, visiting web pages, gathering information, and finding new pages through links. Think of them as librarians who organize books but for websites.

Here’s how web crawlers work:

1. They start with a list of web addresses.
2. They look at the code of each web page.
3. They find links on the page and add them to their list.
4. They repeat this process for new pages they find.

As crawlers visit pages, they save important information. This can include text, pictures, and other data about the page. Search engines like Google use this saved information to help people find what they’re looking for when they search.

How Web Crawlers Affect Your Website

Web crawlers play a big role in how people find your website online. They help decide if your site shows up in search results and how high it ranks. By understanding how crawlers look at your site, you can make changes to help more people find you through search engines.

But web crawlers can also cause problems. Some bad crawlers might take private information or slow down your website by asking for too much at once. That’s why it’s important to know about different types of crawlers that visit your site.

The 15 Most Common Web Crawlers in 2024

Now, let’s look at the 15 web crawlers you’re most likely to see in 2024. We’ll explain what they are, what they do, and how they can affect your website. From Google’s crawler to those used by social media sites, each one has a special job. Knowing how they work can help you make your website easier to find and use.

Search Engine Crawlers

Search engines help people find information online. Their crawlers look for new web pages, save information about them, and rank them. Let’s look at the most important search engine crawlers:

1. Googlebot: The Most Important Crawler

Googlebot is Google’s main crawler. It finds new and updated web pages to add to Google’s search results. There are different types of Googlebot:

• Desktop Googlebot: Looks at pages like a computer user would see them.
• Smartphone Googlebot: Checks how pages look on mobile devices.
• Googlebot-Image: Finds and saves information about pictures.
• Googlebot-Video: Looks for videos across the web.
• Googlebot-News: Focuses on news websites and articles.

To help your website do well in Google searches:

• Make sure it works well on mobile devices
• Help it load quickly
• Write helpful content that answers people’s questions

2. Bingbot: Microsoft’s Web Crawler

Bingbot is a bot for Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Like Googlebot, it looks at web pages and saves information for use in search results. Bingbot also has desktop and mobile versions.

To help your site do well on Bing:

• Follow Bing’s rules for websites
• Look for any differences between what Bing and Google prefer

3. Yandex Bot: For Russian Websites

Yandex, a popular search engine in Russia, has a robotic crawler named Yandex Bot. This bot checks out websites that are relevant and useful for Russian users. If you want people in Russia to find your website, you should learn about Yandex Bot.

Yandex Bot cares about:

• How useful your website is for Russian users
• The quality of your content
• How easy your site is to use

4. Baidu Spider: For Chinese Websites

Baidu, the search engine giant, reigns supreme in China. Its crawler, Baidu Spider, looks at Chinese websites. If you want people in China to find your site, you need to know about Baidu Spider.

To do well on Baidu:

• Make your website fast
• Make sure it works well on mobile devices
• Follow Chinese rules for websites

5. DuckDuckGo Bot: The Privacy-Friendly Crawler

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that cares a lot about privacy. Its crawler, DuckDuckGo Bot, respects website owners’ wishes about what it should and shouldn’t look at.

If privacy is important to you or your users:

• Set up your robots.txt file correctly
• Give clear instructions to the crawler about what it can and can’t see

6. Other Search Engine Crawlers

While Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, and DuckDuckGo are the biggest, there are other search engines with their own crawlers:

• Yahoo! Slurp: Yahoo’s crawler
• SeznamBot: Used by Seznam. cz, popular in the Czech Republic
• NaverBot: Works for Naver, the main search engine in South Korea
• Ecosia Bot: Used by Ecosia, a search engine that plants trees

If you want to reach people in specific countries, you might need to think about these crawlers, too

Social Media Crawlers

Social media is a big part of how we use the internet. These sites have their own crawlers that look for shared links, posts, pictures, and more. These crawlers help users find interesting content on their platforms. Let’s look at some common social media crawlers.

1. Facebook External Hit

When you share a link on Facebook, the Facebook External Hit crawler checks it out. It looks at the page you shared and makes a small preview. This preview helps other people decide whether to click on your link.

To make your website look good on Facebook:

• Use Open Graph tags
• Choose good pictures
• Write short, interesting descriptions

2. Twitterbot

Twitterbot works for Twitter. It examines tweets, user profiles, and other content on Twitter. It helps people find tweets with links and search for information on Twitter.

To do well on Twitter:

• Use hashtags that fit your topic
• Talk to other users
• Share helpful information

3. Pinterest bot

Pinterest bot works for Pinterest, a site where people share pictures and ideas. This crawler helps users find pins, boards, and other content people share on Pinterest.

If you use Pinterest for your business:

• Make good-looking pins
• Write clear descriptions
• Use words people might search for
• Be active on Pinterest and talk to other users

4. LinkedInBot

LinkedInBot works for LinkedIn, a site for professional networking. It looks at user profiles, company pages, articles, and other content on LinkedIn. This helps people find jobs, make work connections, and learn about their industry.

To do well on LinkedIn:

• Write a good summary of yourself or your business
• List your skills and experience
• Share helpful information about your work or industry

Other Common Web Crawlers

Besides search engines and social media, other web crawlers do different jobs. Some gather info for SEO tools, while others save copies of websites. Here are a few important ones:

1. Rogerbot

Rogerbot works for Moz, a company that makes SEO tools. It looks at websites and collects data about:

• Links to your site from other sites
• How important your site seems
• Other SEO stuff

This info helps people who use Moz’s tools to check how their website is doing.

If you use Moz’s tools:

• Make sure Rogerbot can read your site
• Use structured data to give clear info about your site

2. AhrefsBot

AhrefsBot works for Ahrefs, another company that makes SEO tools. It mostly looks at links between websites. This helps Ahrefs users see:

• Who’s linking to their site
• Where they might get new links
• What links do their competitors have

If you use Ahrefs:

• Make sure AhrefsBot can read your site
• Use clear links between pages on your site

3. SemrushBot

SemrushBot works for Semrush, a company that makes lots of online marketing tools. This bot looks at many things about websites:

• Links from other sites
• How easy it is to find the website when you search for something online
• What ads does the site use
• And more

This info helps Semrush users learn about their own sites and their competitors.

If you use Semrush:

• Make sure SemrushBot can read your site
• Use good SEO practices on your site

4. Majestic-12

Majestic-12 works for Majestic, a company that focuses on links between websites. It looks closely at these links and tells users:

• How many links point to their site
• How good those links are
• How related those links are to their site

If you want to know about links to your site:

• Make sure your pages link to each other well
• Make it easy for Majestic-12 to read your site.

Spotting and Understanding Web Crawlers on Your Site

Your website gets many visitors. Some are people looking for information or products. Others are web crawlers and computer programs that look at your site and collect data. It’s good to know the difference between these visitors. Let’s learn how to spot web crawlers and why it matters.

How to Spot Web Crawlers on Your Site

Here are some ways to tell if a web crawler is visiting your site:

1. Check Your Server Logs: Your server keeps a record of everyone who visits your site. This includes web crawlers. You can look for special names in these records. For example, Google’s crawler is called “Googlebot/2.1”.
2. Look at How They Act: Web crawlers act differently from people. They:
   • Visit many pages quickly
   • Follow a set path through your site
   • Might look at pages people don’t usually see
3. Use Online Tools: Check out websites that can help you identify web crawlers. These tools look at who’s visiting your site and give you reports about crawler activity.

Looking at Web Crawler Logs and Behavior

Once you know which crawlers are visiting, you can learn more about what they do. This means looking closely at your server logs to see:

• Crawl Patterns: Which paths do crawlers take through your site? Do they see all your important pages?
• Crawl Frequency: How often do different crawlers visit your site? This can show how important search engines consider it.
• Crawl Errors: Do crawlers have any problems when they visit? Fixing these problems can help your site show up better in search results.

If you are using Elementor, you can use Google Analytics to track website traffic, including crawler visits. This helps you understand how crawlers act on your site.

How Elementor Helps with Website Optimization

Elementor empowers you to make informed decisions to enhance your website. By understanding how search engines crawl your site and how visitors interact with it (using external tools), you can identify areas for improvement. For instance, if certain pages are not being crawled frequently, consider these options:

• Adjust internal links between pages
• Submit an updated sitemap to search engines

Elementor simplifies the process of implementing changes and evaluating their impact. You can:

• Optimize your site’s loading speed
• Ensure seamless functionality on mobile devices
• Enhance overall user experience

These improvements can make your site more appealing to both search engines and human visitors.

Making Your Website Better for Web Crawlers

Now that you know about web crawlers, let’s talk about how to make your site better for them. Think of web crawlers as guests in your online home. You want to make it easy for them to see all the good stuff on your site. This section will show you how to do that.

Using robots.txt: Telling Crawlers Where to Go.

Think of robots.txt as a sign for web crawlers. It lets them know what parts of your site are off-limits and which ones they’re free to explore. It’s a simple text file that you put on your website.

Why is robots.txt important? It helps you:

1. Control What Gets Crawled: You can guide search engines to the most crucial sections of your website if you want them to recognize their significance.
2. Protect Private Info: You can stop crawlers from seeing parts of your site you want to keep private.
3. Avoid Duplicate Content: If you have the same content in different places, you can tell crawlers which one to look at.

Here’s a simple example of a robots.txt file:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /private/

Disallow: /temp/

This tells all crawlers (User-agent: *) not to look at the /private/ and /temp/ folders on your site.

Be careful with robots.txt. If you block important pages, they might not show up in search results. You need to find the right balance.

Creating and Sending XML Sitemaps: Guiding the Crawlers

An XML sitemap can be likened to a cartographic representation of a website’s structure so crawlers can easily find their way around. It lists all the important pages on your site. This helps crawlers find and look at your content quickly and correctly.

Here’s a simple example of one page in an XML sitemap:

<url>

  <loc>https://www.yourwebsite.com/blog/article-title</loc>

  <lastmod>[year]-08-20</lastmod>

  <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>

  <priority>0.8</priority>

</url>

This tells crawlers:

• The page’s web address (loc)
• When it was last changed (lastmod)
• How often it changes (changefreq)
• How important it is compared to other pages (priority)

After you create your sitemap, you need to tell search engines about it. To make this easier, you can use tools like Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.

Elementor Pro itself does not generate or update XML sitemaps, but it can complement dedicated WordPress sitemap plugins by offering a Sitemap Widget for manual HTML sitemap creation within your Elementor-built pages.

Improving Website Structure and Links: Making Crawling Easier

Think of your website as a well-organized city. It should have clear streets, connected neighborhoods, and easy-to-find landmarks, which makes it easy for web crawlers to navigate around your site.

Here are some ways to make your site better for crawlers:

1. Clear Organization: Group your content into categories. This helps crawlers understand how your pages are related.
2. Easy Navigation: Make it simple for people and crawlers to move around your site. Use clear menus and buttons.
3. Smart Internal Linking: Connect related pages with links. Use words in your links that describe what’s on the linked page.

If you want an easy way to build and improve your website, Elementor can help. It lets you create good-looking, well-organized websites easily. Elementor also ensures your site works well, which helps crawlers view your content efficiently.

Using Elementor to Make SEO-Friendly Websites

Elementor is more than just a tool to build websites. It helps you make sites that look good and work well with search engines. Here’s how Elementor can help:

1. Clean Code: Elementor creates clear, easy-to-read code, which helps search engines understand your site’s content.
2. Works on All Devices: Elementor helps you make sites that look good on computers, phones, and tablets. This is important for SEO.
3. Fast Loading: Elementor helps your site load quickly, which is good for both visitors and search engines.

Using these features, you can create a website that looks good and works well for both people and search engines.

Fixing Common Crawler Problems

Even well-made websites can sometimes have issues with web crawlers. Let’s look at some common problems and how to fix them.

Managing Crawl Budget and Rate

The crawl budget is like a shopping list for search engines. It determines how many pages they’ll check out on your website. The crawl rate is how quickly it does this. Here’s how to make the most of your crawl budget:

1. Make important pages easy to find
2. Remove or improve low-quality pages
3. Link your pages together well
4. Make your site fast

Fixing Crawl Errors and 404 Pages

Crawl errors happen when search engines can’t access parts of your site. Common errors include:

• Server Errors (5xx): Your web server isn’t working right
• Not Found Errors (404): A page is missing or has moved
• Access Denied Errors (403): The crawler is blocked from some pages

To fix these:

• Check your site regularly for errors
• Fix broken links
• Use redirects when you move pages

While Elementor itself doesn’t directly resolve crawl errors, it can help improve user experience by allowing you to create custom 404 pages. These pages guide visitors to relevant content even if they encounter a broken link or missing page.

Dealing with Duplicate Content

Duplicate content means the same text appears in more than one place on your site. This needs to be clarified for search engines. To fix this:

1. Use special tags to let search engines know which version of a page is the most important.
2. Make sure each page on your site has unique content.

Elementor Pro can provide a built-in feature to add canonical tags to your pages. However, it’s still crucial to create original and engaging content for each page to avoid duplicate content issues and provide value to your visitors.

Protecting Your Website from Bad Crawlers

Not all web crawlers are good. Some try to steal data or cause problems. Here’s how to protect your site:

Spotting and Blocking Bad Crawlers

Look for crawlers that:

• Make too many requests too quickly
• Try to access parts of your site you’ve blocked
• Use suspicious names

To block bad crawlers:

1. Block their IP addresses
2. Block their names in your robots.txt file
3. Use a Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Be careful to avoid blocking good crawlers by mistake.

Making Your Site Secure

To keep your site safe:

1. Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication
2. Keep your site and plugins up to date
3. Use a good hosting company
4. Use SSL to encrypt data
5. Use security plugins

How Elementor Helps with Security

Elementor offers features to help keep your site safe:

• Regular security checks on its code: Elementor regularly audits its codebase to identify and address potential vulnerabilities
• Different levels of access for users: Elementor’s user role system allows you to control what different users can edit
• Compatibility with security plugins: Elementor works seamlessly with popular security plugins to enhance your site’s protection

Remember, you still need to use other security best practices, too.

The Future of Web Crawling

Web crawling is changing as technology gets better. Here’s what we might see in the future:

Smarter Crawlers with AI

Future crawlers might use artificial intelligence (AI) to:

• Understand web pages better
• Prioritize high-quality content
• Give personalized search results

Ethical Crawling

As crawlers get smarter, they must follow the rules and respect website owners’ wishes. This includes:

• Following robots.txt instructions
• Not overloading websites
• Not taking sensitive data

Elementor’s AI Features

Elementor is using AI to make website creation easier. Its AI features can:

• Suggest content ideas
• Generate layouts based on prompts
• Assist with writing tasks (generating, translating, adjusting tone)

Remember, optimizing layouts for user experience and SEO involves additional tools and techniques within Elementor.

Wrap-Up

Web crawlers are important for helping people find information online. By understanding how they work, you can make your website easier for them to read. This can help more people find your site.

We’ve examined the 15 most common web crawlers in 2024, how to spot them, and how to make your site work well with them. We’ve also discussed how to keep your site safe from bad crawlers.

Remember, a good website works well for both people and web crawlers. This handy guide can help you make your website more welcoming and accessible.

Want to Improve Your Website?

Try Elementor to make your website better. It offers:

• An easy-to-use website builder
• AI-powered features
• Secure hosting

Check out Elementor today to see how it can help your website.