How to Fix Crawl Errors
Crawl errors occur when search engines, particularly Google, attempt to access your website but encounter issues that prevent them from fully crawling and indexing your content. Crawl errors can hurt your SEO performance by preventing search engines from properly indexing your pages, which can result in lower rankings and visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
In this article, we’ll explore the types of crawl errors, how to identify them using Google Search Console, and provide actionable steps to fix them.
What Are Crawl Errors?
Crawl errors happen when a search engine’s crawler (like Googlebot) fails to reach or interpret your website’s content. These errors fall into two categories:
- Site Errors: These affect your entire website and prevent search engines from crawling your site at all.
- URL Errors: These occur on individual pages, where Googlebot can’t access a specific URL.
Both types of errors can negatively impact your SEO, but fixing them can improve your site’s overall crawlability, helping search engines properly index your content and rank your pages higher.
Types of Crawl Errors
Before diving into the fixes, let’s take a look at the most common types of crawl errors:
1. Site Errors
Site errors affect your entire website, making it difficult or impossible for search engines to crawl any of your pages. Common site errors include:
- DNS Errors: This happens when Googlebot can’t communicate with your server because your DNS server isn’t available or is misconfigured.
- Server Errors (5xx): These occur when the server times out, is overloaded, or is configured incorrectly, preventing it from responding to Googlebot.
- Robots.txt Fetch Errors: This happens when Googlebot cannot access your robots.txt file, which could block crawling of certain pages.
2. URL Errors
URL errors happen on individual pages of your site. They don’t affect the overall crawlability of your site but can prevent specific pages from being indexed. Common URL errors include:
- 404 Not Found: These occur when a requested URL does not exist on the server. This can happen if a page is deleted or the URL is incorrectly entered.
- 403 Forbidden: This error happens when the server refuses to grant access to Googlebot for a particular page.
- 301/302 Redirect Errors: Redirect errors occur when URLs are incorrectly redirected, creating redirect loops or broken links.
- Soft 404 Errors: These occur when a page returns a 200 OK status (indicating the page exists) but is actually a blank or empty page, giving the impression of a 404 error.
How to Identify Crawl Errors Using Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the best tool to identify and monitor crawl errors on your website. Here’s how to use it to detect errors:
- Login to Google Search Console: Visit Google Search Console and sign in to your account.
- Access the Coverage Report: Navigate to the “Coverage” tab under the “Index” section. This report provides details about the URLs on your site that have been indexed, those with errors, and those that are excluded from indexing.
- Review Crawl Errors: The Coverage report will show you any issues with URLs on your website, including the type of crawl error (e.g., 404 errors, server errors, redirect issues) and the number of affected URLs.
- Check the Affected URLs: Click on specific errors to view the list of URLs that are affected. This will give you insights into the specific pages that Googlebot was unable to crawl.
How to Fix Crawl Errors
Once you’ve identified crawl errors, the next step is to fix them. Below are solutions to the most common crawl errors:
1. Fix DNS Errors
DNS (Domain Name System) errors occur when Googlebot cannot connect to your website’s server. This might be due to DNS server issues or configuration problems.
- Check DNS settings: Ensure that your DNS server is configured correctly and is responsive. Use tools like DNS Checker or Pingdom to test your DNS status.
- Contact your hosting provider: If you’re experiencing intermittent DNS issues, contact your hosting provider for assistance or consider upgrading to a more reliable DNS provider.
2. Fix Server Errors (5xx)
Server errors occur when Googlebot requests a page but encounters server-side issues, such as the server being down, overloaded, or configured incorrectly.
- Check your server logs: Review your server logs for any signs of issues, such as high load, crashes, or memory problems.
- Increase server resources: If you’re running a high-traffic website, your server may be overwhelmed. Consider upgrading your hosting plan, optimizing your site for performance, or using a Content Delivery Network (CDN)to reduce server load.
- Fix timeouts: If your server times out, try to reduce the time it takes to process requests by optimizing your website’s code or database.
3. Fix Robots.txt Fetch Errors
If Googlebot is unable to access your robots.txt file, it won’t know which parts of your website to crawl or avoid. This could lead to incomplete or inefficient crawling.
- Ensure your robots.txt file is accessible: Check that your robots.txt file is located in your website’s root directory (e.g.,
yourdomain.com/robots.txt
) and that it’s correctly formatted. - Fix file permissions: Ensure that the permissions on your robots.txt file allow it to be accessed by search engines (readable by everyone).
- Test with Google Search Console: Use GSC’s robots.txt tester tool to check if your robots.txt file is blocking essential pages.
4. Fix 404 Not Found Errors
404 errors occur when a requested page cannot be found. These errors can harm your SEO if too many of your site’s URLs return 404 errors.
- Redirect old URLs: If the page has been moved, use a 301 redirect to point the old URL to the new page. This ensures both users and search engines are directed to the correct page.
- Remove dead URLs: If the page no longer exists and won’t be replaced, you can leave it as a 404, but ensure that there are no internal links pointing to the missing page.
- Fix broken internal links: Use tools like Screaming Frog to find broken internal links and update them with the correct URLs.
5. Fix Redirect Errors (301/302)
Redirect errors occur when a page is incorrectly redirected or when redirect loops are present. These can confuse both users and search engines.
- Check for redirect chains or loops: Use tools like Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, or Redirect Path to identify redirect chains or loops. Fix these issues by pointing URLs directly to the final destination rather than creating multiple redirects.
- Use 301 redirects for permanent changes: Ensure that you’re using 301 redirects for any permanent URL changes and 302 redirects for temporary redirects. Avoid using 302s for permanent changes, as they don’t pass full SEO equity.
6. Fix Soft 404 Errors
Soft 404 errors occur when a page returns a 200 OK status but shows an empty or error-like page, which confuses both users and search engines.
- Add meaningful content: If the page is still useful, add meaningful content to prevent it from being perceived as a soft 404.
- Redirect or remove the page: If the page is no longer relevant, either set it to return a true 404 status or use a 301 redirect to point it to a relevant page.
7. Fix 403 Forbidden Errors
403 errors happen when Googlebot is denied access to a specific page, usually due to permissions or security settings.
- Check file permissions: Ensure the affected page or directory has the correct permissions set to allow Googlebot to crawl it.
- Update security settings: If you’re using IP restrictions or firewalls, ensure that Googlebot isn’t being blocked from accessing certain parts of your site. You can use GSC’s URL Inspection tool to check Googlebot’s view of the page.
Monitor and Prevent Future Crawl Errors
After fixing crawl errors, it’s important to keep monitoring your site regularly to prevent new issues from arising:
- Use Google Search Console: Regularly check the Coverage report in GSC to monitor your site’s indexing status and catch any new errors.
- Run regular site audits: Use tools like Screaming Frog, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to perform comprehensive audits of your site. These tools can help identify broken links, redirect chains, and other technical issues.
- Optimize your website: Ensure your website is optimized for speed, security, and performance, which reduces the chances of errors occurring.
Fixing crawl errors is a vital part of maintaining a healthy, search engine-friendly website. By regularly monitoring Google Search Console, resolving DNS issues, fixing broken links, optimizing redirects, and addressing server problems, you can ensure that your website is fully accessible to search engines. This helps improve your website’s crawlability, boosts SEO performance, and ultimately leads to better search engine rankings.
Keep a close eye on your crawl errors and fix them promptly to maintain a seamless user experience and help search engines index your content efficiently.