What Is Crawlability? How to Check Crawlability in PrestaShop

Crawlability describes how easily search engine crawlers can discover, access, and navigate the pages on your website.

For a PrestaShop store, good crawlability means search engines can efficiently reach important product pages, category pages, CMS pages, and other content you want them to discover.

Poor crawlability can make important pages difficult for search engines to find or access. This can happen because of blocked URLs, weak internal linking, broken links, unnecessary URL variations, redirect problems, or technical accessibility issues.

Understanding crawlability is therefore one of the first steps when auditing the technical SEO of a PrestaShop store.

What Is Crawlability?

Search engines use automated programs called crawlers or bots to discover content on the web. Google's crawler is commonly known as Googlebot.

A crawler can discover URLs in several ways, including following links from pages it already knows and processing URLs provided through sitemaps.

When a crawler discovers a URL, it may attempt to access the page and process its content and links. Those links can then lead the crawler to additional pages.

For an ecommerce store, this creates relationships such as:

Homepage -> Categories -> Subcategories -> Products

and:

Product -> Related Products -> Other Products

A logical site structure and crawlable internal links therefore help search engines discover the important pages within your catalog.

Crawlability is not the same as indexability.

Crawlability concerns whether search engines can discover and access a page. Indexability concerns whether a page can be considered for inclusion in a search engine's index.

A page being crawlable does not guarantee that it will be indexed.

Learn more about the difference between crawlability and indexability →

Why Is Crawlability Important for PrestaShop SEO?

Before search engines can properly evaluate most of your store's pages for search, they first need to discover and access them.

Imagine that your PrestaShop store contains 5,000 products, but some products are difficult to reach through your site's navigation and receive no useful internal links.

Those products may exist and work perfectly for customers who know their URLs, but they can be more difficult for search engines to discover naturally.

Crawlability becomes especially important for ecommerce websites because their structure is usually more complex than that of a small informational website.

A PrestaShop store may contain:

• Product pages
• Category and subcategory pages
• Brand or manufacturer pages
• CMS pages
• Product combinations
• Filters
• Sorting options
• Search pages
• URL parameters
• Multilingual URLs

Some of these URLs represent valuable content that search engines should discover. Others may simply be technical variations that add little additional search value.

The objective is therefore not to make crawlers visit as many URLs as possible.

The objective is to make important pages easy to discover and access while keeping unnecessary crawl paths under control.

What Can Prevent Search Engines from Crawling a PrestaShop Store?

Crawlability problems can come from several different parts of your store.

Important Pages Are Blocked by robots.txt

The robots.txt file provides instructions about which areas compliant crawlers are allowed or not allowed to crawl.

A rule that unintentionally blocks an important section of your store can prevent crawlers from accessing URLs within that section.

For example, after changing your store structure or SEO configuration, an old robots.txt rule may no longer reflect which pages you want crawlers to access.

When auditing crawlability, check whether robots.txt rules affect important:

• Products
• Categories
• CMS pages
• Resources required for search engines to understand your pages

Be careful not to confuse crawling controls with indexing controls. Blocking a URL through robots.txt is not the same as instructing a search engine not to index a page.

Important Pages Are Not Internally Linked

Search engines commonly discover new URLs by following links.

If an important page receives no crawlable internal links, it becomes much harder to discover through the normal structure of your website.

This can happen when:

• A product is no longer connected to an accessible category.
• A CMS page exists but is not linked from relevant content.
• A page is accessible only through an internal search function.
• Navigation changes remove the paths that previously led to a page.

Pages with no meaningful internal links are often referred to as orphan pages. An XML sitemap can provide another discovery path, but it should not replace a logical internal linking structure for important content.

Navigation or Links Are Difficult for Crawlers to Follow

A user may be able to interact with an interface without every navigation mechanism necessarily providing search engines with an equally clear crawl path.

Important navigation should therefore use links that search engines can reliably discover and follow.

When reviewing your PrestaShop store, pay particular attention to:

• Main navigation
• Category navigation
• Pagination
• Breadcrumbs
• Related products
• Links within CMS or Resource content

The goal is to make the relationship between important pages clear through your site's structure.

Too Many URL Variations Create Unnecessary Crawl Paths

Ecommerce functionality can generate many URL variations.

Filters, sorting options, product attributes, parameters, and other features may produce URLs that lead to identical or very similar content.

For example, crawlers could encounter multiple URLs representing variations of the same catalog view.

When this happens across thousands of products and categories, the number of discoverable URLs can grow substantially.

During a crawlability audit, investigate:

• Filter-generated URLs
• Sorting URLs
• Parameter URLs
• Product combination URLs
• Duplicate category paths
• Other dynamically generated URL variations

Not every URL variation is automatically a problem. The important question is whether these variations create useful, distinct pages or simply produce unnecessary crawl paths.

Broken Internal Links Lead Crawlers to Missing Pages

Internal links sometimes continue pointing to URLs after products are removed, categories are reorganized, or URLs are changed.

The crawler follows the link but reaches a missing page, commonly resulting in a 404 response.

An occasional 404 is normal. However, large numbers of broken internal links can make your site structure less efficient for both users and crawlers.

During your audit, identify:

• Internal links pointing to deleted products
• Links to old category URLs
• Outdated links inside CMS content
• Links to URLs that were renamed
• Navigation elements pointing to missing pages

When a valid replacement exists, update the internal link and consider whether the old URL also requires an appropriate redirect.

Redirect Chains Make Crawl Paths More Complex

Redirects are useful when URLs change, but unnecessary chains can make navigation more complicated.

For example:

Old URL -> Newer URL -> Newest URL

If your internal links still point to the first URL, both users and crawlers must pass through multiple redirects before reaching the final destination. Where possible, internal links should point directly to the current URL. Review existing redirects when products, categories, or other important URLs have been changed repeatedly over time.

Server or Website Accessibility Problems Can Affect Crawling

Even a perfectly organized URL structure cannot be crawled reliably if the website itself cannot respond properly.

Temporary server errors, repeated timeouts, access restrictions, or other availability problems can interfere with crawler access.

If crawlability problems appear inconsistent rather than URL-specific, investigate whether they coincide with:

• Server errors
• Slow or failed responses
• Security rules
• Firewall restrictions
• CDN configuration
• Bot protection
• Website outages

This is particularly important if security or performance tools have recently been changed.

How to Check Whether Google Can Crawl Your PrestaShop Store

You do not need to inspect every URL manually. Start with representative and strategically important pages.

Check Important URLs in Google Search Console

Google Search Console's URL Inspection tool can help you investigate individual URLs.

Start with important examples such as:

• Homepage
• Major category pages
• High-value product pages
• Important CMS pages

If Google cannot access a page as expected, investigate the reason before focusing on smaller on-page SEO improvements. Testing representative URLs from different page types can also help reveal whether a problem affects one page or an entire section of your store.

Check Your robots.txt File

Review the rules in your robots.txt file and determine which sections they affect.

Pay particular attention after:

• Changing your URL structure
• Migrating your store
• Changing themes
• Installing or changing SEO modules
• Modifying security settings
• Changing crawling rules manually

Do not assume that an old configuration is still appropriate simply because it has existed for a long time.

Check Your Internal Linking Structure

Navigate through your store as if you were trying to discover every important page without using its URL directly.

Ask:

• Can important products be reached from their categories?
• Can important categories be reached through navigation?
• Are subcategories properly connected?
• Are important informational pages linked from relevant content?
• Are some important pages effectively isolated?

A logical structure should allow users and crawlers to move from broader entities to more specific ones. For example:

Homepage -> Shoes -> Running Shoes -> Product

is a much clearer relationship than relying on a product being discoverable only through a search box or sitemap.

Review Your XML Sitemap

Your XML sitemap provides another way for search engines to discover important URLs.

Check whether:

• Important URLs are included.
• Removed URLs remain in the sitemap unnecessarily.
• Sitemap URLs use the intended URL versions.
• Newly created important pages are being added.
• The sitemap remains current as your catalog changes.

The sitemap and internal linking structure should complement each other rather than compensate for fundamentally disconnected site architecture.

Review Broken URLs and Redirects

Check whether crawlers and users are frequently reaching:

• 404 pages
• Old URLs
• Redirected URLs
• Redirect chains

Then determine where those URLs are coming from. If an internal link still points to an outdated URL, correcting the link itself is often preferable to relying permanently on a redirect.

Review Unnecessary URL Variations

Explore product and category pages while using filters, sorting options, combinations, pagination, and other interactive features.

Observe whether these actions create additional URLs.

Then determine whether those URLs:

• Represent meaningfully different content.
• Need to be discoverable by search engines.
• Duplicate another page.
• Create large numbers of unnecessary crawl paths.

For a large ecommerce catalog, understanding how these URL variations are generated is an important part of technical SEO.

How to Improve Crawlability in PrestaShop

Once you identify crawlability problems, prioritize changes that make important content easier to discover and access.

Keep Important Pages Internally Linked

Important products, categories, and content should have clear paths from other relevant pages. Use internal links to establish meaningful relationships between content rather than adding links simply for SEO purposes.

Maintain a Logical Store Structure

Keep the hierarchy understandable:

Homepage -> Category -> Subcategory -> Product

Not every store needs exactly this structure, but important content should not be unnecessarily buried behind many navigation levels.

Avoid Accidentally Blocking Important URLs

Review robots.txt and other access controls whenever you make significant technical changes. A configuration designed to control unwanted crawling should not inadvertently prevent access to valuable pages.

Reduce Unnecessary URL Variations

Review filters, parameters, sorting, combinations, and other functionality that generates URLs. Determine which URLs provide unique value and which are merely technical variations of existing pages.

Keep Your XML Sitemap Accurate

Include the important URLs you want search engines to discover and keep the sitemap synchronized with meaningful changes to your catalog.

Fix Broken Internal Links

When an internal URL changes, update links pointing to the old location. Do not rely on redirects when you can link directly to the correct destination.

Review Redirects Regularly

Remove unnecessary redirect chains and make sure redirects lead to genuinely relevant destinations.

Monitor Technical Changes

Crawlability can change when you modify your theme, change navigation, add or remove products, restructure categories, change URLs, modify robots.txt, install modules, or change CDN or security settings. Crawlability should therefore be checked again after significant structural or technical changes.

A Simple PrestaShop Crawlability Checklist

When reviewing your store, ask:

• Can search engines access my important pages?
• Are important pages reachable through internal links?
• Does robots.txt accidentally block important content?
• Does my site structure clearly connect categories and products?
• Are there broken internal links?
• Are there unnecessary redirect chains?
• Does my XML sitemap contain the correct important URLs?
• Do filters and parameters generate excessive URL variations?
• Are important pages dependent on difficult-to-discover navigation?
• Can my server reliably respond to crawler requests?

If the answer to any of these questions reveals a problem, investigate it before spending time on minor on-page optimizations.

Manage Crawlability and Technical SEO with PrestaHero SEO Audit

As your PrestaShop catalog grows, manually checking URLs, robots.txt, sitemaps, redirects, and 404 errors can become time-consuming.

PrestaHero SEO Audit brings these technical SEO tools together in your PrestaShop back office, helping you manage crawl-related issues and keep important parts of your store easier for search engines to discover.

Explore PrestaHero SEO Audit ->

Keep Your Store Easy to Discover

Good crawlability is about creating clear and reliable paths to the pages that matter.

For a PrestaShop store, that means maintaining a logical site structure, crawlable internal links, appropriate crawler access, accurate sitemaps, clean URL relationships, and healthy links and redirects.

As your catalog changes, these relationships can change as well. Regularly reviewing crawlability helps ensure that new products and content do not become difficult for search engines to discover simply because the technical structure of the store has evolved.

Crawlability is only one part of technical SEO, but it comes early in the process: if search engines have difficulty discovering or accessing an important page, many of the optimizations made to that page may have limited opportunity to matter.