There is no fixed frequency for requesting a recrawl with Ahrefs. It depends on how frequently you make changes to your website. If you regularly update your content or make significant changes, it’s a good idea to request a recrawl to ensure search engines have the latest information.
Why Recrawling is Important for SEO
Recrawling is an essential aspect of SEO as it ensures that search engines have the most up-to-date information about your website. When search engines like Google or Bing crawl your website, they analyze and index its content to determine its relevance and ranking in search results. However, search engines don’t continuously crawl every website on the internet. Instead, they rely on signals to determine when to recrawl a website. This means that if you make changes to your website, such as updating content, adding new pages, or fixing broken links, search engines may not be immediately aware of these changes. By initiating a recrawl with Ahrefs, you can prompt search engines to revisit your website and update their index with the latest information. This is particularly important for SEO because it allows search engines to accurately assess your website’s relevance and rank it accordingly in search results. So, if you want to stay ahead of your competitors and ensure that your website is performing at its best in search rankings, recrawling with Ahrefs is a crucial step to take.
How Ahrefs Recrawling Works
Ahrefs recrawling works by providing website owners with a way to request search engines to revisit and reindex their website. When you initiate a recrawl request through Ahrefs, the tool sends a notification to search engines, such as Google, informing them that changes have been made to your website and that a recrawl is necessary. This prompts search engines to send their bots to your website to analyze and index the updated content. Ahrefs allows you to monitor the progress of the recrawl, giving you insights into when search engines have successfully revisited your website. This recrawling process helps ensure that search engines have the most current information about your website, which is crucial for maintaining accurate search rankings and visibility. By utilizing Ahrefs recrawling, you can stay on top of any changes or updates to your website and ensure that search engines are aware of them. It’s a powerful tool in your SEO arsenal that can help improve your website’s performance in search results.
1. Understanding Ahrefs Crawl Frequency
Understanding Ahrefs crawl frequency is crucial when it comes to getting your website recrawled. Ahrefs, like other search engines, has a specific frequency at which it crawls websites to gather data and update its index. The exact crawl frequency may vary depending on factors such as the size and popularity of your website, the amount of new content being added, and the quality of the backlinks pointing to your site. Ahrefs uses a sophisticated algorithm to determine the crawl frequency for each website in its index. This algorithm takes into account various factors, including the website’s historical data, the rate of content updates, and the number of backlinks. By understanding Ahrefs crawl frequency, you can better estimate when your website will be recrawled and plan your SEO strategies accordingly. It’s important to note that while Ahrefs strives to crawl websites as frequently as possible, it may not be able to recrawl every website on a daily basis. So, be patient and focus on optimizing your website to attract Ahrefs’ attention when it does crawl. If you want to learn more about starting an SEO agency, check out our article on how to start an SEO agency.
2. Factors Affecting Ahrefs Recrawling
There are several factors that can affect Ahrefs recrawling of your website. Understanding these factors can help you optimize your website for successful recrawling.
1. Crawl Budget: Ahrefs, like other search engine crawlers, has a limited crawl budget, which refers to the number of pages it can crawl on your website within a given time frame. The crawl budget is influenced by factors such as the size of your website, server response time, and the importance of your pages. Ensuring that your website is efficiently structured and optimized can help maximize your crawl budget and increase the chances of recrawling.
2. Website Authority: Ahrefs assigns a crawl priority based on the authority of your website. Websites with higher authority are more likely to be crawled frequently compared to those with lower authority. Building high-quality backlinks, improving your website’s overall domain authority, and regularly publishing fresh and relevant content can help increase your website’s authority and improve recrawling frequency.
3. Internal Linking: Ahrefs uses internal links to discover new pages on your website. Ensuring a well-structured internal linking system can help Ahrefs identify and crawl all the important pages on your website. By linking to your most valuable and relevant pages from other pages on your site, you can increase their visibility and improve the likelihood of recrawling.
4. Page Updates: Ahrefs tends to prioritize crawling pages that have recently been updated. If you make significant changes to your website, such as adding new content, modifying existing pages, or fixing broken links, Ahrefs is more likely to recrawl your website to discover these updates. Regularly updating and refreshing your website’s content can encourage Ahrefs to recrawl your site more frequently.
5. XML Sitemap: Having an updated XML sitemap can help Ahrefs understand the structure and hierarchy of your website. Submitting an updated XML sitemap to Ahrefs can ensure that all your important pages are discovered and recrawled.
By considering these factors and optimizing your website accordingly, you can improve the chances of Ahrefs recrawling your website more frequently and staying up-to-date with any changes or updates you make.
Steps to Get Ahrefs to Recrawl Your Website
To get Ahrefs to recrawl your website, follow these simple steps. First, sign in to your Ahrefs account. Once logged in, access the Site Explorer tool, which is a powerful feature that allows you to analyze your website’s performance and visibility. In the Site Explorer tool, enter your website’s URL in the search bar. This will provide you with comprehensive data about your website’s backlinks, organic traffic, and more. After entering your website’s URL, you can initiate a recrawl request by clicking on the “Recrawl” button. This will notify Ahrefs to revisit your website and update its data. It’s important to note that recrawling may take some time, so be patient and monitor the recrawl progress. By following these steps, you can ensure that Ahrefs recrawls your website and provides you with the most accurate and up-to-date information about your site’s performance.
1. Sign in to Your Ahrefs Account
To begin the process of getting Ahrefs to recrawl your website, you first need to sign in to your Ahrefs account. Here are the steps to follow:
1. Open your preferred web browser and go to the Ahrefs website.
2. Click on the “Log In” button located at the top right corner of the page.
3. Enter your Ahrefs account credentials, including your email address and password.
4. Click the “Sign In” button to access your Ahrefs account.
Once you have successfully signed in, you will have access to the various tools and features provided by Ahrefs to optimize your website’s SEO performance. Now that you are logged in, you can proceed with the next steps to get Ahrefs to recrawl your website.
2. Access the Site Explorer Tool
To access the Site Explorer tool in Ahrefs, follow these simple steps:
1. Once you have signed in to your Ahrefs account, navigate to the dashboard or homepage.
2. Look for the “Site Explorer” option in the menu or toolbar. It is usually located at the top of the page.
3. Click on the “Site Explorer” option to access the tool.
The Site Explorer tool is a powerful feature in Ahrefs that allows you to analyze and explore various aspects of your website’s performance and SEO. It provides valuable insights into your website’s backlink profile, organic search traffic, top-performing pages, and much more. With this tool, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your website’s SEO metrics and identify areas for improvement. So, make sure to access the Site Explorer tool in Ahrefs to leverage its capabilities and optimize your website’s performance in search engines.
3. Enter Your Website URL
To initiate the recrawl process with Ahrefs, you need to enter your website URL. Once you have signed in to your Ahrefs account and accessed the Site Explorer tool, you will see a search bar where you can input your website’s URL. Make sure to enter the full URL, including the “http://” or “https://” prefix. This step is crucial as it directs Ahrefs to the specific website you want to recrawl. By entering your website URL accurately, you ensure that Ahrefs focuses its crawling efforts on your website rather than any other unrelated sites. So, take the time to double-check the URL before proceeding to the next step. For example, if you have a freelance SEO business, such as an SEO agency or as an independent freelancer, you can enter the URL of your website to initiate the recrawl process. This step is important as it allows Ahrefs to gather the most recent data about your website and update its index accordingly. By doing so, you can stay informed about the performance of your website and make data-driven decisions to improve your SEO strategy.
4. Initiate a Recrawl Request
To initiate a recrawl request with Ahrefs, follow these steps:
1. Once you are signed in to your Ahrefs account, navigate to the Site Explorer tool.
2. In the search bar, enter the URL of the website you want to recrawl. Make sure to include the full URL, including the “https://” or “http://” prefix.
3. Press the Enter key or click on the magnifying glass icon to perform the search.
4. On the search results page, you will see an overview of the website’s data. Look for the “Crawl” section in the left-hand sidebar and click on “Recrawl” within this section.
5. A pop-up window will appear, allowing you to select the recrawl frequency. Choose the desired frequency based on your website’s update frequency and importance.
6. Once you have selected the recrawl frequency, click on the “Recrawl” button to initiate the recrawl request.
It’s important to note that Ahrefs will prioritize recrawl requests based on their own internal algorithms and the importance of the website. This means that not all recrawl requests will be immediately processed. However, Ahrefs strives to recrawl websites as frequently as possible to ensure the most accurate and up-to-date data.
By initiating a recrawl request with Ahrefs, you can ensure that search engines have the latest information about your website, which will help improve your SEO performance. So, take advantage of this feature to keep your website optimized and competitive in search rankings. For more information on SEO, check out our article on how much SEO freelancers make or learn how to pitch SEO to clients.
5. Monitor the Recrawl Progress
Once you have initiated a recrawl request with Ahrefs, it’s important to monitor the progress to ensure that it is successfully completed. Ahrefs provides a user-friendly interface that allows you to track the recrawl progress in real-time. Here are the steps to monitor the recrawl progress:
1. Access the Ahrefs Site Explorer tool and sign in to your account.
2. Navigate to the “Recrawl Requests” section, which can usually be found in the left sidebar or under the “More” tab.
3. Look for the recrawl request that you initiated and click on it to view the details.
4. Ahrefs will display the status of the recrawl request, indicating whether it is in progress, completed, or encountered any issues.
5. If the recrawl request is still in progress, you can periodically check the status to see if it has been completed. Ahrefs typically provides an estimated time for completion based on the size of your website.
6. Once the recrawl is completed, Ahrefs will provide a summary of the recrawl results, including the number of URLs crawled and any issues encountered during the process.
7. Take note of any issues that Ahrefs may have identified, such as broken links, duplicate content, or crawl errors. These issues can negatively impact your website’s SEO performance and should be addressed promptly.
By monitoring the recrawl progress, you can ensure that Ahrefs has successfully crawled your website and updated its database with the latest information. This allows you to make informed decisions about your SEO strategy and address any issues that may be affecting your website’s performance in search rankings.
Best Practices to Ensure Successful Recrawling
To ensure successful recrawling of your website by Ahrefs, there are a few best practices that you should follow. Firstly, optimize your robots.txt file to allow Ahrefs and other search engines to crawl your website effectively. Make sure that you haven’t inadvertently blocked any important sections or pages. Secondly, submit an updated XML sitemap to Ahrefs. This will provide a clear roadmap of your website’s structure and help search engines discover and crawl all of your pages. Regularly updating and submitting your sitemap will ensure that Ahrefs is aware of any changes or additions to your website. Lastly, focus on improving your website’s performance. Slow-loading pages or broken links can hinder the recrawl process. Optimize your website’s speed and ensure that all links are working properly to provide a smooth user experience and facilitate efficient recrawling by Ahrefs. By following these best practices, you can increase the chances of successful recrawling and ensure that Ahrefs has the most accurate and up-to-date information about your website.
1. Optimize Your Robots.txt File
One of the best practices to ensure successful recrawling is to optimize your robots.txt file. The robots.txt file is a text file that tells search engine crawlers which pages or sections of your website to crawl and which ones to ignore. By optimizing your robots.txt file, you can control the crawlability of your website and ensure that search engines are focusing on the most important pages.
Here are some tips to optimize your robots.txt file:
1. Use the Disallow directive: The Disallow directive tells search engine crawlers which pages or directories to exclude from crawling. You can use this directive to block access to specific parts of your website that you don’t want to be indexed. For example, if you have sensitive information or duplicate content on your website, you can use the Disallow directive to prevent search engines from crawling and indexing those pages.
2. Allow access to important pages: While the Disallow directive is useful for blocking access to certain pages, you also want to ensure that search engine crawlers can access and index your most important pages. Use the Allow directive to explicitly allow access to specific pages or directories that you want search engines to crawl.
3. Use wildcards: Wildcards are characters that represent one or more characters in a filename or directory. You can use wildcards in your robots.txt file to specify patterns of URLs to allow or disallow. For example, you can use the * wildcard to block access to all URLs that have a certain parameter or to block access to a specific file type.
4. Test your robots.txt file: After optimizing your robots.txt file, it’s important to test it to ensure that it’s working as intended. You can use the robots.txt tester tool in the Google Search Console to check if there are any issues with your file.
Remember, optimizing your robots.txt file is a crucial step in ensuring that search engine crawlers are able to effectively crawl and index your website. By properly controlling the crawlability of your site, you can improve your website’s visibility and search engine rankings.
2. Submit an Updated XML Sitemap
Submitting an updated XML sitemap is a crucial step in ensuring successful recrawling of your website by Ahrefs. An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your website and provides important information about them, such as the last modified date, priority, and frequency of changes. By regularly updating and submitting your XML sitemap to Ahrefs, you are signaling to the search engines that there have been changes to your website that need to be recrawled and indexed. This helps search engines discover and crawl new or updated pages more efficiently.
To submit an updated XML sitemap to Ahrefs, follow these steps:
1. Generate an updated XML sitemap using a sitemap generator tool or by manually updating the existing one.
2. Log in to your Ahrefs account and access the Site Explorer tool.
3. Enter your website URL in the search bar and click on the “Explore” button.
4. In the left sidebar, click on the “Sitemaps” option under the “Indexing” section.
5. Click on the “Add sitemap” button.
6. Enter the URL of your updated XML sitemap in the provided field.
7. Click on the “Submit” button to submit the sitemap to Ahrefs.
By submitting an updated XML sitemap, you are providing Ahrefs with a clear roadmap of your website’s structure and content, making it easier for their crawler to discover and recrawl all the relevant pages. This can help improve the accuracy and completeness of the data in Ahrefs’ index, leading to more accurate SEO analysis and better search rankings for your website.
3. Improve Website Performance
Improving website performance is an important practice to ensure successful recrawling by Ahrefs. When search engines crawl your website, they take into consideration various factors, including the loading speed and overall performance of your site. A slow-loading website can negatively impact user experience and search engine rankings. To optimize your website’s performance, start by optimizing images and reducing their file sizes without compromising quality. Compressing CSS and JavaScript files can also help to minimize the load time. Additionally, consider enabling browser caching to store static files and reduce server requests. Another way to improve performance is by utilizing content delivery networks (CDNs) to distribute your website’s content across multiple servers worldwide, allowing for faster access to your site’s resources. Regularly monitoring and optimizing your website’s performance not only enhances the user experience but also increases the chances of successful recrawling by Ahrefs and improves your overall SEO efforts. So, make sure to prioritize website performance optimization to ensure that your website is running efficiently and effectively.
Conclusion
In conclusion, getting Ahrefs to recrawl your website is an important step in maintaining a strong SEO strategy. By ensuring that search engines have the most up-to-date information about your website, you increase your chances of ranking higher in search results. We have discussed the significance of recrawling for SEO and how Ahrefs recrawling works. We have also explored the steps to get Ahrefs to recrawl your website, including signing in to your Ahrefs account, accessing the Site Explorer tool, entering your website URL, initiating a recrawl request, and monitoring the progress. Additionally, we have provided some best practices to ensure successful recrawling, such as optimizing your robots.txt file, submitting an updated XML sitemap, and improving website performance. By following these steps and implementing these best practices, you can maximize the effectiveness of recrawling with Ahrefs and enhance your website’s visibility and performance in search rankings. So, take action today and get Ahrefs to recrawl your website for better SEO results.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How often should I request a recrawl with Ahrefs?
There is no fixed frequency for requesting a recrawl with Ahrefs. It depends on how frequently you make changes to your website. If you regularly update your content or make significant changes, it’s a good idea to request a recrawl to ensure search engines have the latest information.
2. Can I request a recrawl for specific pages only?
Yes, Ahrefs allows you to request a recrawl for specific pages or sections of your website. This is useful if you have made changes to specific pages and want search engines to update their index accordingly.
3. How long does it take for Ahrefs to recrawl my website?
The recrawl process with Ahrefs can vary in time. It depends on various factors such as the size of your website, the number of pages to be recrawled, and the current load on Ahrefs’ servers. Generally, it can take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days.
4. What happens if Ahrefs encounters errors while recrawling my website?
If Ahrefs encounters errors while recrawling your website, it will provide you with a report highlighting the specific issues. You can then address these issues to ensure successful recrawling in the future.
5. Does recrawling with Ahrefs guarantee that search engines will immediately update their index?
No, recrawling with Ahrefs does not guarantee immediate updates in search engine indexes. While Ahrefs can prompt search engines to recrawl your website, the actual timing and frequency of search engine crawls are determined by the search engines themselves.
6. Can I monitor the progress of the recrawl request?
Yes, Ahrefs provides a monitoring feature that allows you to track the progress of your recrawl request. You can see which pages have been recrawled and any errors or issues encountered during the process.
7. Should I make changes to my robots.txt file before requesting a recrawl?
It is recommended to review and optimize your robots.txt file before requesting a recrawl. This file instructs search engine crawlers on which parts of your website to crawl and which to exclude. Ensuring that your robots.txt file is properly configured can help search engines crawl and index your website more effectively.
8. What is the role of an XML sitemap in recrawling?
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your website and provides additional information about each page. Submitting an updated XML sitemap to search engines can help them discover and crawl your website more efficiently, increasing the chances of recrawling.
9. Can slow website performance affect the recrawl process?
Yes, slow website performance can impact the recrawl process. If your website takes a long time to load or experiences frequent downtime, search engine crawlers may not be able to access and recrawl your website effectively. It’s essential to optimize your website’s performance for better recrawling.
10. Are there any other benefits of recrawling with Ahrefs?
Yes, recrawling with Ahrefs not only helps with SEO but also provides valuable insights into your website’s health and performance. By monitoring the recrawl process, you can identify and fix any issues that may be affecting your website’s visibility and ranking in search results.
