The process through which a search engine analyses content and considers storing it in its searchable index.
A practical example
A new service page can be discovered and crawled before the search engine decides whether to index it.
What to watch for
Crawling, indexing and ranking are separate stages. Being technically indexable or listed in a sitemap does not guarantee inclusion.
Related reading
Explore robots.txt and Google Search Console (GSC). Try our noindex checker for a practical next step. See how this fits into Technical SEO.