How to Only Crawl and Render Pages from My XML Sitemap?
Prerender doesn't filter by sitemap automatically—you need to customize your integration to limit rendering to sitemap URLs.
Overview
If you're trying to ensure that only the URLs listed in your XML sitemap are rendered and cached by Prerender, you may notice that Prerender attempts to render more pages than intended. This can lead to unnecessary render usage, increased cache size, and potentially lower efficiency—especially on large or dynamic websites.
By default, Prerender does not restrict rendering to only sitemap-listed URLs.
There is no option in Prerender to only cache pages from the Sitemap. You will need to modify your Prerender integration so that bots will be redirected from only the URLs that are on the Sitemaps.
Additional Tips / Best Practices
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Cache only high-value pages like landing pages, category pages, or top-converting URLs.
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Refresh your sitemap parsing regularly, especially if your site content changes often.
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Add logic to ignore or blacklist irrelevant URLs, such as login pages, user-specific dashboards, or filtered results with query parameters.
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Monitor your render history to spot any URLs being cached that shouldn’t be.
Get Support
Still have questions or need help? We’re here for you!
If you’ve followed the troubleshooting steps and still can’t resolve the issue, feel free to reach out to our support team. You can contact us via:
- Email: support@prerender.io
- Support Ticket: Submit a ticket
To help us resolve your issue as quickly as possible, please gather and include any relevant information, such as:
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Your website URL
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A copy of your XML sitemap or a sample of its structure
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Details about your current middleware or server setup
Providing these details up front will help our team diagnose the problem more efficiently and get you back on track faster.