I have no idea why, but more and more I am seeing search crawls result in error of “access is denied”. The issue is that the web server is not allowing authentication to sites that are localhost (or local). The fix is simple, but I wish I knew why this was creeping up more.

Fix is here

In short do the follow. The reboot is necessary.

Method 2: Disable the loopback check

Follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3. Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.