If search engines cannot properly crawl your website, your pages may struggle to appear in organic search. Fortunately, several tools can help uncover technical barriers. A practical crawlability checklist combines crawling software, search engine data and manual checks so you can identify problems rather than relying on one tool alone.

Which Tools Can Check Website Crawlability?

Website crawlers are one of the best places to start.

Tools such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider can crawl links across your website in a similar way to a search engine crawler. This can help uncover broken links, redirect chains, incorrect status codes, canonical issues and pages that are difficult to reach through your internal linking structure.

Cloud-based SEO platforms can provide similar site auditing features.

They can be useful for regularly monitoring technical issues across a website, particularly when you want recurring reports rather than running every crawl manually.

Google Search Console provides a different perspective.

Its indexing reports can show which URLs Google has discovered and whether certain pages are excluded from its index. The URL Inspection tool can also provide information about individual URLs, including whether Google can access and index them.

Search Console should therefore form an important part of your crawlability checklist, but it does not replace a full website crawl. Combining different tools gives you a more complete picture.

What Should a Crawlability Checker Look For?

Start with HTTP status codes.

Important pages should normally return the intended successful response. Broken URLs, redirect loops and long redirect chains can make navigation more difficult for users and crawlers.

Next, check your robots.txt file.

This file can tell compliant crawlers not to access particular areas of your website. Blocking sections intentionally can be useful, but an incorrect rule could prevent search engines from crawling content you actually want them to discover.

Internal links deserve close attention too.

Search engines commonly discover pages by following links. If an important page has no internal links pointing towards it, discovering and understanding its place within your website can become more difficult.

Your crawlability checklist should also include XML sitemaps.

A sitemap can help search engines discover URLs you want them to know about. Check that it contains the correct canonical URLs and does not become cluttered with redirects, errors or pages you do not intend to have indexed.

Canonical tags and indexing directives should also be reviewed.

These elements serve different purposes, but incorrect implementation can send conflicting signals about which URLs should appear in search results.

Crawlability and Indexability Are Not the Same

This distinction is easy to miss.

Crawlability refers to whether a search engine crawler can access and navigate your website. Indexability concerns whether a page can potentially be included in the search engine's index.

A page can be crawlable without being indexable.

For example, a crawler might successfully access a page but discover a noindex directive telling it not to include that URL in search results.

Likewise, discovering a URL does not guarantee that Google will index it.

Search engines make their own decisions about which pages to include. Content quality, duplication and canonicalisation can all influence what ultimately appears in search.

That is why checking only whether a page loads in your browser is not enough.

A useful technical review should consider crawling, indexing and the signals surrounding the page. When using a crawlability checklist, record these separately so you can diagnose the actual problem instead of treating every missing page as a crawling issue.

A Practical Crawlability Checklist

No single score can tell you whether your website is technically healthy.

Start by crawling the website and reviewing important URLs for status-code problems. Check for broken internal links, redirect chains, unexpected canonical tags and pages that cannot be reached through normal navigation.

Then review robots.txt and your XML sitemap.

Confirm that important sections are not accidentally blocked and that the sitemap contains the URLs you actually want search engines to discover.

Use Google Search Console to compare your crawl findings with Google's own information.

Inspect strategically important URLs individually when something looks wrong. If a page is not appearing in search, investigate whether the problem relates to discovery, crawling, indexing or the quality and relevance of the page itself.

For larger websites, consider log-file analysis where appropriate.

Server logs can show how search engine crawlers actually interact with your site. This can be particularly useful when you need to understand crawler behaviour across a large ecommerce, publishing or similarly complex website.

Finally, repeat these checks.

New content, website redesigns, CMS changes and developer releases can introduce technical issues over time. Regular monitoring can help you find problems before they affect large sections of the website.

Make Crawlability Part of Your Technical SEO Routine

The best crawlability checker is rarely one tool. Crawling software can uncover technical patterns, while Google Search Console provides valuable information about how Google sees individual URLs and your wider website.

Build a repeatable crawlability checklist covering status codes, internal links, robots directives, sitemaps, canonicals and indexability. Explore more technical SEO insights from Seek Marketing Partners or contact our team if you need help identifying and prioritising crawlability issues across your website.