Has your Rendering paused?
Rendering and recaching may pause due to hitting your monthly limit, paused settings, or account cancellation.
Overview
If your website is no longer being rendered or updated in the Prerender.io cache, your content may not be properly served to search engines or social crawlers. This can lead to outdated or missing content in search results, directly impacting your site's SEO performance and user experience.
There are several reasons why rendering or recaching may be paused, especially depending on your plan level or account status. This article helps you identify and resolve those issues.
What Happens When Rendering Is Paused
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Recache paused - cached pages are not refreshed
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New pages cannot be added to the cache.
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Cannot use Dashboard or API endpoint to add new pages
- If a bot requests a page that is not in the cache, the service.prerender.io endpoint returns 429 and sets the response header
X-Prerender-Reject-Reason:free-limit-reached
- If a bot requests a page that is not in the cache, the service.prerender.io endpoint returns 429 and sets the response header
- Cannot recache
If rendering is paused, bots will not receive pages that are not cached or will receive outdated pages, which deteriorates your SEO.
Possible Causes
1. Free Plan Limit Reached (Basic Plan)
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You are on the Basic (free) plan, which includes 1,000 renders per month.
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Once this limit is reached, rendering stops automatically until the next billing cycle.
Solution:
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Upgrade your plan from the Subscription Page.
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Or wait until the next billing cycle when your monthly limit resets.
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Paid Plan Overage
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Paid plans allow rendering beyond the included limit, with additional renders charged per 1,000 units.
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Rendering continues even after the included quota is exceeded.
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You will see charges for additional renders on your next invoice.
2. Recaching Manually Paused in Dashboard
You may have paused recaching through your Prerender Dashboard.
Solution:
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Go to the Dashboard > Advanced Settings.
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Locate the Recaching.
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If inactive, toggle it back on to resume refreshing cached content.
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Paused recache symptoms:
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Cached pages are not updated.
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No error response, but bots may see outdated content.
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Page freshness declines over time.
Legacy Account Canceled
If your legacy (pre-2021) account was canceled:
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Rendering and recaching are disabled.
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Requests to
service.prerender.io
return:-
HTTP 503 Service Unavailable
-
Header:
X-Prerender-Reject-Reason: invalid-x-prerender-token-provided
-
Solution:
-
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Contact Prerender Support to check reactivation eligibility.
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If you do not plan to continue service:
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Remove the Prerender integration within 30 days.
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Failure to do so could result in search engines dropping your pages from the index.
-
-
Tips / Best Practices
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Pause recaching cautiously: Only pause recaching when performing temporary site maintenance or major updates.
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Upgrade proactively: If your site grows or traffic spikes, upgrading in advance ensures continued rendering without SEO impact.
-
Check headers: Use tools like
curl
or browser dev tools to inspect HTTP responses for headers likeX-Prerender-Reject-Reason
.
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:
- Error messages you're seeing
- Steps you've already taken to troubleshoot
- Screenshots or screen recordings (if applicable)
Providing these details up front will help our team diagnose the problem more efficiently and get you back on track faster.