What is a web crawler, really? [Video]

A web crawler, also known as a spider or bot, is a program designed to systematically browse the internet, retrieving and indexing information from web pages. It operates by following hyperlinks from one page to another, collecting data for search engines or other purposes such as website indexing and data mining. Google Search Central has published a new video ‘What is a web crawler, really?’. The GSC team says, “In this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman take a deep dive into crawling the web: what is a web crawler, and how does it really work? Listen... [...]