Crawlability
Crawlability is how easily a search engine can reach and read your pages. It concerns access to content, not whether a URL is indexed or ranks.
Crawlers follow links and fetch server responses. A robots.txt rule, server error or login wall can prevent access. An already-known URL can still appear in search without its content being crawled.
Crawling and indexing are different. A crawlable page may carry noindex; a robots-blocked page may prevent the crawler from reading that directive.
A practical example
A product page loads for visitors, but robots.txt disallows its directory. That prevents an obeying crawler from fetching its content.
A common mistake
Treating a crawl block as a reliable way to remove a URL from search.
How to check it
Read the applicable robots.txt rule, fetch the URL without signing in, and inspect the response status. Use URL Inspection to investigate Google's view.
Related terms
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