Crawlers look at webpages and follow links on those pages, much like you would if you were browsing content on the web. They go from link to link and bring data about those webpages back to Google’s servers.
The crawl process begins with a list of web addresses from past crawls and sitemaps provided by website owners. As our crawlers visit these websites, they look for links for other pages to visit. The software pays special attention to new sites, changes to existing sites and dead links.
Computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each site. Google doesn't accept payment to crawl a site more frequently for our web search results. We care more about having the best possible results because in the long run that’s what’s best for users and, therefore, our business.