Crawl Error
01 Definition
Crawl Error meaning: A problem that stops a search engine from successfully fetching a URL.
A crawl error happens when a search engine tries to fetch a page but fails. Site-level errors affect the whole site, such as DNS or server failures, while URL-level errors affect single pages, such as 404 not found or blocked resources. Search Console reports these under indexing and page issues.
Also called
Why it matters
How Crawl Error fits the work
Crawl errors show where search engines cannot reach your content, so fixing them helps pages get discovered, indexed, and kept in search results.
In context
Search Console flagged 120 crawl errors after a redesign, and most traced back to a broken internal link template pointing to old URLs.
Practical note
Not every crawl error needs a fix; a 404 for a page you deliberately removed is fine. Prioritize errors on pages that should be live and indexed.