Regular website updates are crucial for marketers to maintain the website’s relevance and improve its search engine rankings.
However, manually updating hundreds or thousands of pages can be a daunting task. Even more important is ensuring that these updates positively impact SEO rankings.
This is where web crawler bots come in handy. These bots scan the sitemap of a website for any new updates and index the content on search engines.
There are many web crawler bots that exist today, but our crawler list explains and details 19 of the most prominent bots on the internet.
In this article, we will provide an in-depth list of web crawler bots and explain how they work.
19 Most Active Web Crawlers (Bots)
- Googlebot
- Bingbot
- Yandex Bot
- Apple Bot
- DuckDuck Bot
- Baidu Spider
- Sogou Spider
- Facebook External Hit
- Exabot
- Swiftbot
- Slurp Bot
- GoogleOther
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- Majestic
- Semrush
- Lumar (Deep Crawl)
- Screaming Frog
- Oncrawl
What is a web crawler?
A web crawler, also known as a spider, or bot is a software program that automatically scans and reads web pages in a structured way to index them for search engines.
Search engines can provide users with relevant and up-to-date web pages only if a web crawler bot crawls through the web pages. This process can happen automatically or manually initiated.
Several factors, such as backlinks, relevancy, and web hosting, affect a web page’s SEO ranking. However, these factors become irrelevant if the pages are not crawled and indexed by search engines.
Hence, it is essential to ensure that the website allows the correct crawls to occur and removes any obstacles that may hinder them.
To provide the most accurate information, bots must continually scan and extract data from the web. Google is the most visited website in the United States, and approximately 26.9% of searches originate from American users.
Web crawler bots play a significant role in improving a website’s SEO ranking. They are essential tools for website owners and marketers to ensure that their website is updated regularly and that their content is visible to search engine users.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for marketers to improve their website’s visibility and reach a broader audience. Web crawlers play a vital role in indexing a website’s content for relevant search engines like Google, Bing, and others.
Although web crawlers serve the same purpose of gathering information from websites, each search engine utilizes its own crawler with unique capabilities. As a result, developers and marketers often create a “crawler list” to distinguish between the various crawlers that access their website logs.
This crawler list enables them to determine which crawlers should be granted access and which ones should be blocked.
Web Crawlers vs Web Scrapers
While web crawlers and web scrapers are often used interchangeably, they serve different purposes.
Web crawlers are automated programs that systematically browse through web pages, indexing and collecting information about their content. They are mainly used by search engines to build their indexes.
Web scrapers, on the other hand, are used to extract specific data from websites. They can be programmed to scrape information such as product prices or customer reviews and save it in a structured format like a CSV file.
Unlike web crawlers, web scrapers require a more targeted approach and specific instructions on which pages and data to scrape.
| Web crawlers are used to gather data from a wide range of web pages, while web scrapers are used to extract specific data from a smaller number of targeted pages. |
What is a Crawler List?
A crawler list is simply a list of web crawler bots, also known as spiders. These various bots are software programs that automatically traverses the World Wide Web, indexing and collecting data from web pages.
The primary purpose of a web crawler bot is to automate the process of collecting data from the web for search engines or other applications that require large amounts of data.
How Does a Web Crawler Work?
Web crawlers work by following links from one page to another, gathering data and indexing it along the way. When a web crawler visits a web page, it parses the HTML code to extract information such as the page’s title, meta tags, and content.
It also follows links on the page to other pages, repeating the process until it has crawled as many pages as it has been instructed to or until it has reached the end of the web.
Web crawler bots are used for a variety of purposes beyond search engine indexing, such as data mining, web archiving, and web content testing. However, it’s important to note that some webmasters may block web crawlers from accessing their websites using a robots.txt file or other methods to protect their content and servers from excessive traffic or unauthorized data harvesting.
A web crawler works by automatically scanning a web page after it is published and indexing its data. It systematically reads web pages, following links to other pages and indexing the information it finds.
The web crawler looks for specific keywords associated with the web page and indexes that information for relevant search engines.
A crawler list is a crucial tool for marketers to ensure that their website is being indexed correctly for search engines.
Web crawlers play a vital role in SEO by indexing a website’s content for relevant search engines, making it crucial for marketers to understand how they work and how to optimize their landing pages for different web crawlers.
When a user submits a search query on a search engine, algorithms will fetch the data from their index associated with the relevant keyword. Crawls typically begin with established URLs that have various signals directing web crawlers to those pages, including backlinks, visitors, and domain authority.
The web crawler scans the webpage for specific keywords, indexes that information, and stores it in the search engine’s index.
As a webmaster, it’s essential to have a crawler list to control which bots crawl your site. By compiling a crawler list, you can direct crawlers to new content that needs to be indexed and avoid indexing pages that shouldn’t be.
As we mentioned before, web crawlers browse through web pages, indexing and collecting information about their content. Crawlers are a critical part of the web search ecosystem, as they allow search engines to index the web’s vast information and make it easily accessible to users.
A Diverse Crawler List Has Several Different Types
Four different purposes of web crawlers:
- Focused: Focused crawlers search for specific types of content on the web, such as news articles or images, while incremental crawlers continuously update their indexes by revisiting previously crawled pages.
- Incremental: Incremental crawlers continuously update their indexes by revisiting previously crawled pages.
- Distributed: Distributed crawlers are designed to handle large-scale crawls by distributing the crawling process among multiple machines or nodes.
- Deep Web: Deep web crawlers, which crawl non-indexed content, and real-time crawlers, which constantly monitor web pages for updates.
Three different types of web crawlers:
– Open Source Web Crawlers: These are web crawlers that are developed and maintained by the open-source community. They are usually free to use, and their source code is available for anyone to download, modify, and redistribute. Examples of popular open-source web crawlers include Scrapy, Apache Nutch, and Heritrix.
– In-house Web Crawlers: These are web crawlers that are built and maintained by a company or organization for their internal use. In-house web crawlers are usually customized to meet the specific needs of the organization, and they may not be available to the public.
In-house web crawlers are typically used to gather data for analytics, market research, or monitoring the company’s online presence.
– Commercial Web Crawlers: These are web crawlers that are provided by third-party companies for a fee. Commercial web crawlers are typically more advanced than open-source or in-house web crawlers and offer more features and functionalities.
They may also provide additional services, such as data cleaning, analysis, and visualization.
Examples of popular commercial web crawlers include Screaming Frog, Moz, and SEMrush.
19 Web Crawlers & User Agents
1. Googlebot
User Agent – Googlebot
Googlebot is a web crawler developed by Google to scan and index web pages for its search engine, Google. It is responsible for regularly updating the search engine’s index with new or modified pages on the web.
Googlebot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters to ensure that it collects only the data allowed by website owners.
It uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately, which helps to improve the overall search experience. Webmasters can define in their robots.txt file whether they permit or deny Googlebot from crawling their site.
Googlebot is a critical tool for webmasters and an essential asset for Google’s search services.
2. Bingbot
User Agent – Bingbot
Bingbot is a web crawler developed by Microsoft to scan and index web pages for its search engine, Bing. It crawls the web regularly to ensure the search engine’s results are relevant and up-to-date for its users.
Bingbot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters to ensure that it collects only the data allowed by website owners. Bingbot uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately, which helps to improve the overall search experience.
Webmasters can define in their robots.txt file whether they permit or deny Bingbot from crawling their site. Bingbot is a reliable tool for webmasters and an essential asset for Bing’s search services.
3. Yandex
User Agent – Yandexbot
YandexBot is a web crawler developed by the Russian search engine, Yandex, to scan and index web pages for its search engine.
It is one of the most comprehensive crawlers in terms of scanning websites and indexing pages. YandexBot API allows webmasters to check if their site has been crawled by YandexBot.
This crawler considers multiple factors, including user behavior, the relevance of search terms, and the quality and quantity of links when selecting which content to elevate in the search results.
It also provides webmasters with a range of tools to help improve their site’s visibility on the Yandex search engine.
4. Applebot
User Agent – Applebot
Applebot is a web crawler created by Apple to scan and index web pages for its Siri and Spotlight Suggestions services. This crawler operates differently than others, as it prioritizes user privacy, and doesn’t collect user data for advertising or profiling purposes.
Applebot considers several factors, including user engagement, the relevance of search terms, and location-based signals when choosing which content to showcase in Siri and Spotlight Suggestions. Webmasters can utilize the robots.txt file to allow or deny Applebot from crawling their site.
Applebot’s unique indexing process and focus on privacy make it a reliable tool for webmasters and a valuable asset to Apple’s search services.
#5 DuckDuckbot
User Agent – DuckDuckbot
DuckDuckBot is a web crawler developed by the privacy-oriented search engine, DuckDuckGo. It crawls websites to gather information for indexing purposes and to provide search results for DuckDuckGo users. DuckDuckBot API allows webmasters to check if their site has been crawled by the DuckDuckBot.
This crawler focuses on user privacy, and it doesn’t collect any personally identifiable information. It also doesn’t follow users across the web, which distinguishes it from other search engines.
DuckDuckBot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters to ensure it gathers information only from the areas allowed by the website owners, making it a trustworthy tool for webmasters.
#6 Baiduspider
User Agent – Baiduspider
Baidu Spider is a web crawler that serves the Baidu search engine, which is one of the most popular search engines in China. It scans websites to gather information for indexing purposes and plays a crucial role in improving the accuracy and relevance of search results.
Baidu Spider provides webmasters with valuable insights into how their site is being crawled and indexed, enabling them to make necessary adjustments to their website to improve search engine visibility.
#7 Sogouspider
User Agent – Sogouspider
The Sogou Spider is a web crawler that serves as the backbone of the Sogou search engine, which is one of the leading search engines in China.
Sogou Spider is known for being the first search engine to index up to 10 billion Chinese web pages, which has made it a crucial tool for businesses that are targeting the Chinese market.
It utilizes advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately, which helps to improve the overall user experience.
Additionally, the Sogou Spider provides webmasters with valuable insights into how their site is being crawled and indexed, enabling them to make necessary adjustments to their web pages for better visibility on the search engine.
#8 Facebook Bot
User Agent – FacebookBot
FacebookBot is a web crawler developed by Facebook to scan and index web pages for its social network platform. It crawls the web regularly to ensure that the information presented on Facebook’s platform is accurate and up-to-date.
FacebookBot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters to ensure that it collects only the data allowed by website owners.
It uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately, which helps to improve the overall user experience.
Webmasters can define in their robots.txt file whether they permit or deny Facebot from crawling their site. FacebookBot is a crucial tool for Facebook and an essential asset for its social network services.
#9 Exabot
User Agent – Exabot
Exabot is a web crawler developed by Exalead, which is a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes. It scans and indexes web pages for Exalead’s search engine.
Exabot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters to ensure that it collects only the data allowed by website owners.
It uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately, which helps to improve the overall search experience.
Exabot provides webmasters with valuable insights into how their site is being crawled and indexed, enabling them to make necessary adjustments to their web pages for better visibility on the search engine.
#10 Swiftbot
User Agent – Swiftbot
Swiftbot is a web crawler developed by the company Swiftype. The Swiftbot web crawler is a crawling service for Swiftype’s customers.
From the Swiftype website,
What websites does Swiftbot crawl?
Most web crawlers automatically crawl all websites, because they are trying to build a search index of the entire web. Swiftbot, by comparison, only crawls sites that our customers have asked us to crawl.
#11 Slurpbot
User Agent – Slurp
Slurp is a web crawler developed by Yahoo to scan and index web pages for its search engine. It crawls the web regularly to ensure the search engine’s results are relevant and up-to-date for its users.
Slurp follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters to ensure that it collects only the data allowed by website owners. It uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately, which helps to improve the overall search experience.
Webmasters can define in their robots.txt file whether they permit or deny Slurp from crawling their site. Slurp is a reliable tool for webmasters and an essential asset for Yahoo’s search services.
#12 GoogleOther
User Agent – GoogleOther
In April 2023, Google launched a new web crawler GoogleOther.
GoogleOther documentation:
Generic crawler that may be used by various product teams for fetching publicly accessible content from sites. For example, it may be used for one-off crawls for internal research and development.
Google analyst Gary Illyes posted on Linkedin,
We added a new crawler, GoogleOther to our list of crawlers that ultimately will take some strain off of Googlebot. This is a no-op change for you, but it’s interesting nonetheless I reckon.
As we optimize how and what Googlebot crawls, one thing we wanted to ensure is that Googlebot’s crawl jobs are only used internally for building the index that’s used by Search. For this we added a new crawler, GoogleOther, that will replace some of Googlebot’s other jobs like R&D crawls to free up some crawl capacity for Googlebot.
7 of the Most Active Web Crawling Bots for SEO Tools
- AhrefsBot
- Moz Rogerbot
- Majestic MJ12bot
- SemrushBot
- Bright
- Screaming Frog
- Oncrawl
13. Ahrefs
Ahrefs Bot is a web crawler developed by Ahrefs, a popular SEO tool suite. It scans and indexes web pages for Ahrefs’ search engine and provides insights to website owners and digital marketers for improving their website’s visibility and SEO performance.
Ahrefs Bot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters and uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately.
Website owners can utilize Ahrefs’ suite of SEO tools to analyze their website’s backlinks, keywords, and overall SEO performance. Ahrefs Bot is an essential tool for Ahrefs’ SEO services and a valuable asset for website owners and digital marketers.
14. Moz
Rogerbot is a web crawler developed by Moz, a well-known SEO tool provider. It scans and indexes web pages for Moz’s search engine and provides insights to website owners and digital marketers for improving their website’s visibility and SEO performance.
Rogerbot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters and uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately.
Website owners can utilize Moz’s suite of SEO tools to analyze their website’s backlinks, keywords, and overall SEO performance. Rogerbot is an essential tool for Moz’s SEO services and a valuable asset for website owners and digital marketers.
15. Majestic
MJ12bot is a web crawler developed by Majestic, a well-known SEO tool provider. It scans and indexes web pages for Majestic’s search engine and provides insights to website owners and digital marketers for improving their website’s visibility and SEO performance. MJ12bot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters and uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately.
Website owners can utilize Majestic’s suite of SEO tools to analyze their website’s backlinks, keywords, and overall SEO performance. MJ12bot is an essential tool for Majestic’s SEO services and a valuable asset for website owners and digital marketers.
16. Semrush
SemrushBot is a web crawler developed by SEMrush, a popular SEO tool suite. It scans and indexes web pages for SEMrush’s search engine and provides insights to website owners and digital marketers for improving their website’s visibility and SEO performance.
SemrushBot follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters and uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately.
Website owners can utilize SEMrush’s suite of SEO tools to analyze their website’s backlinks, keywords, and overall SEO performance. SemrushBot is an essential tool for SEMrush’s SEO services and a valuable asset for website owners and digital marketers.
17. Bright Data
Bright Data (formerly Luminati Networks) offers a range of web crawlers, including their Bright Data Collector, which scans and indexes web pages for data extraction and analysis purposes.
Their crawlers follow the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters, and they use advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately. Website owners can utilize Bright Data’s services for data gathering, competitive analysis, and market research.
Bright Data’s web crawlers are an essential tool for their data collection and analysis services and a valuable asset for businesses and researchers looking to gain insights from web data.
18. Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is a web crawler developed by Screaming Frog Ltd, a UK-based SEO agency. It scans and indexes web pages for SEO purposes and provides valuable insights to website owners and digital marketers.
Screaming Frog follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters and uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately.
Website owners can utilize Screaming Frog’s suite of SEO tools to analyze their website’s meta data, backlinks, and overall SEO performance. Screaming Frog is an essential tool for SEO professionals and a valuable asset for website owners and digital marketers looking to improve their website’s visibility.
19. Oncrawl
Oncrawl is a web crawler developed by OnCrawl, an SEO tool provider. It scans and indexes web pages for SEO purposes and provides valuable insights to website owners and digital marketers. Oncrawl follows the robot’s exclusion text and crawl delay parameters and uses advanced algorithms to process data efficiently and accurately.
Website owners can utilize Oncrawl’s suite of SEO tools to analyze their website’s meta data, content quality, and overall SEO performance. Oncrawl is an essential tool for SEO professionals and a valuable asset for website owners and digital marketers looking to improve their website’s visibility.
Conclusion
That’s our crawler list for 2023.
Web crawlers are beneficial for search engines and are crucial for marketers to comprehend. It is essential to ensure that the appropriate crawlers crawl your site accurately for the success of your business. Maintaining a list of crawlers can assist in identifying which ones to monitor when they show up in your site log.
By implementing suggestions from commercial crawlers and enhancing your site’s content and speed, you can facilitate crawler access to your site and index the appropriate information for both search engines and consumers seeking it.
Hello,
I apprediate all information given by you regarding bots scralwers. I wonder if you can advise me where to look for Australian, Indian, Latin American or Africa bots scrawlers???
Than you
Regards
Norbert (Germany)