Imagine you're giving directions to a friend who's never been to your neighborhood. You could say "turn left at the big tree" or "go straight until you see something interesting," but those directions would be confusing and unreliable. Instead, you'd give specific addresses and clear landmarks: "Turn left at 123 Main Street" or "Continue to the red brick library at Oak Avenue."
Crawlable anchors work the same way for search engines navigating your website. They're properly formatted links that provide clear, specific directions about where to go next. When your links use valid URLs and proper HTML structure, search engine crawlers can follow them reliably to discover and index all your content. When links are broken, vague, or improperly formatted, crawlers get lost and miss important pages on your site.
Search engines discover your content by following links, making crawlable anchors essential for SEO success:
Many websites have valuable content that never appears in search results because it's hidden behind non-crawlable links. This "orphaned content" might as well not exist from an SEO perspective, representing lost opportunities for traffic and engagement.
Several link types prevent search engines from following connections between your pages:
Links that rely entirely on JavaScript to function, without proper href attributes, can't be followed by many search engine crawlers.
Pages that can only be reached by submitting forms aren't accessible to search engines, which typically don't fill out and submit forms during crawling.
Links that only change the URL fragment (after the #) without pointing to actual different pages don't help search engines discover new content.
While these links work for users, the rel="nofollow" attribute tells search engines not to follow them, preventing content discovery through these connections.
Links with malformed URLs, missing protocols, or incorrect syntax can't be processed by search engine crawlers.
Links to pages behind login forms or password protection are inaccessible to search engines, making this content invisible in search results.
Understanding the difference between crawlable and non-crawlable links helps you identify and fix issues:
<!-- Search engines can't follow this -->
<a href="#" onclick="showPage('products')">View Products</a>
<!-- This is also problematic -->
<div onclick="loadContent('/about')">About Us</div>Problem: No actual URL for search engines to follow.
<!-- Search engines can follow this -->
<a href="/products">View Products</a>
<!-- Enhanced with JavaScript but still crawlable -->
<a href="/about" onclick="trackClick('about')">About Us</a>Solution: Valid href attribute with proper URL.
<!-- Search engines can't submit forms -->
<form action="/search" method="post">
<button type="submit">View Results</button>
</form>Problem: Content only accessible through form submission.
<!-- Provides direct access plus form functionality -->
<a href="/search/all-results">View All Results</a>
<form action="/search" method="get">
<input type="text" name="q" placeholder="Search...">
<button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>Solution: Direct link available alongside form functionality.
Follow these practices to ensure your links work for both users and search engines:
Always use standard HTML <a> tags with valid href attributes that contain actual URLs, not just JavaScript functions or hash symbols.
Use full, properly formatted URLs in your href attributes. Relative URLs (/page) work fine, but make sure they point to actual pages that exist on your server.
If you need JavaScript functionality on your links, add it as an enhancement to proper HTML links rather than replacing the link entirely with JavaScript.
For content that might be behind forms or JavaScript interactions, ensure there are also direct, crawlable links that lead to the same content.
Regularly check that your links actually work by clicking them, and use tools to verify that search engines can follow them successfully.
Use clear, descriptive text for your links that tells both users and search engines what they'll find when they follow the link.
What's happening: Your website uses JavaScript frameworks that change content without creating new URLs that search engines can crawl.
SEO Impact: Search engines only see your homepage and miss all the other content sections, severely limiting your search visibility.
Simple solution: Implement proper routing that creates unique URLs for each section of content, or use server-side rendering to make content accessible to crawlers.
What's happening: Your navigation menus require JavaScript to reveal links to important pages, making those pages hard for search engines to discover.
SEO Impact: Key pages may not be crawled and indexed, reducing your overall search visibility and making it harder for users to find important content.
Simple solution: Ensure dropdown menu items have proper href attributes and are accessible even when JavaScript is disabled, or provide alternative navigation like a sitemap.
What's happening: Your website uses JavaScript-powered "load more" functionality that doesn't create direct links to the additional content.
SEO Impact: Content that only appears after clicking "load more" remains invisible to search engines, losing potential search traffic.
Simple solution: Implement pagination with proper page URLs alongside or instead of infinite scroll, ensuring all content has direct, crawlable links.
What's happening: Important content is hidden behind login requirements, making it inaccessible to search engine crawlers.
SEO Impact: Valuable content never appears in search results because crawlers can't access password-protected areas.
Simple solution: Provide public preview versions of important content, or create landing pages that describe protected content and encourage sign-ups.
Use these methods to verify that your links work properly for search engines:
Turn off JavaScript in your browser and navigate your website. If you can't reach important pages, neither can search engines that don't execute JavaScript.
Use text-only browsers like Lynx to see how your website appears to crawlers that focus on content rather than visual presentation.
Monitor your website's crawling status and link discovery through Google Search Console, which reports crawling errors and indexing issues.
Use SEO crawlers like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to simulate how search engines navigate your website and identify uncrawlable links.
Run your website through link validation tools that check for broken links, invalid URLs, and other crawlability issues.
Develop a comprehensive internal linking approach that helps search engines discover all your content:
With mobile-first indexing, ensure your links work properly on mobile devices:
Implement these advanced strategies for optimal link crawlability:
Proper link crawlability delivers significant business benefits:
Online stores often have product filtering systems that create non-crawlable URLs, category pages that require JavaScript to navigate, and seasonal content that becomes inaccessible when promotions end.
Property websites frequently use map-based navigation that doesn't provide direct links to listings, search functionality that requires form submission, and property details that are only accessible through JavaScript interactions.
Media sites commonly have infinite scroll implementations without pagination, archive systems that aren't properly linked, and comment sections that load content dynamically without creating crawlable URLs.
Technology companies often have product demos behind login requirements, documentation that requires navigation through JavaScript interfaces, and feature pages that are only accessible through interactive elements.
Your website's links are like bridges connecting different islands of content. When these bridges are sturdy and clearly marked, both visitors and search engines can easily explore everything you have to offer. But when links are poorly constructed or invisible to crawlers, valuable content becomes isolated islands that no one can reach.
The challenge with link crawlability is that many websites work perfectly for human visitors while being partially invisible to search engines. This creates a false sense of security—everything seems fine from a user experience perspective, but search engines are missing important content, leading to lost opportunities for organic traffic and visibility.
Creating crawlable links isn't about dumbing down your website or avoiding modern web technologies. It's about building smart foundations that work for everyone. When you implement proper HTML links as your base layer and then enhance them with JavaScript and other technologies, you create websites that are both technically sophisticated and fundamentally accessible.
Remember that every piece of valuable content on your website deserves the opportunity to be found. By ensuring your links are crawlable, you're not just improving your SEO—you're creating a more inclusive, accessible web where good content can reach the people who need it most.
Greadme's comprehensive analysis can identify links that search engines can't follow and provide specific guidance on making your entire website more crawlable and discoverable.
Check Your Link Crawlability Today