Search engines are nothing but answering machines that can answer any kind of queries that viewers rise.
Search engines have access to enormous databases of information, and when any search query reaches the search engine, it starts to hunt for the answer within its database.
However, the task is not as easy as it may sound because the most difficult thing that search engines have to achieve is not just providing an answer but the most appropriate answer.
The answer must be useful to searchers, or else they would lose faith in search engines. After finding several answers that are closest to what searchers are looking for, search engines rank it according to the popularity of the websites where the information was available.
Therefore, presenting the most correct and popular answer is the task of search engines.
The tasks of search engines
To perform its tasks, search engines depend on two main activities for accessing the database of information or more precisely all websites on the internet.
Only when search engines become aware of the presence of websites that they can think about accessing it. It means that the website must exist in the database of search engines so that they become aware of its existence as well as its contents.
For knowing about websites, search engines need eyes and ears for gathering information and to do it search engines use crawlers or spiders or search bots that scan websites for creating an exhaustive list that also includes the type of content.
The search bots crawl the websites and indexes the content.
Crawling and indexing
Search engine bots are continuously active on the web, and whenever it identifies a web page, it starts crawling it. In plain words, crawling is nothing but reading a web page by search bots.
This is the first step in introducing a web page to search engines which takes note of it and then moves ahead to enlist it in its database which is known as indexing.
It is similar to the index you see in books. Crawling helps search engines to recognize a page and show it in search results.
Having crawled the web pages, search engines create an index that lists the contents of the pages which is known as indexing. This is essential because it helps search engines to judge the relevance of content before presenting it in search results.
Crawling helps search engines to analyze a page content and its code, but indexing confirms that the page is fit enough for showing in search results.
Facilitating crawling and indexing
The SEO company Vision Smash only performs white hat SEO and is aware of the importance of crawling and indexing.
They ensure that the web design has elements that allow search engines to carry out the tasks of crawling and indexing because the inability to do it would keep websites out of the consideration of search engines and would never appear in search results.
Paying attention to the web design is, therefore, crucial to make it friendly for search engines that have a lasting impact on SEO.