Ensuring your website works well with crawlers like AhrefsBot is essential for comprehensive SEO success. Ahrefs is one of the most active SEO crawlers after Google and Bing, visiting over 8 billion web pages every 24 hours. Optimizing your site for Ahrefs crawlers not only improves how your site appears in Ahrefs' tools but can also enhance your overall SEO performance.
Understanding Ahrefs Crawlers
Ahrefs operates two primary web crawlers:
1. AhrefsBot
This is the main crawler that powers Ahrefs' link database. It continuously crawls the web to discover and index links between websites, updating its index every 15-30 minutes.
2. AhrefsSiteAudit
This dedicated crawler powers Ahrefs' Site Audit tool, which is used when someone runs a technical SEO audit on a website. It provides detailed insights into a site's technical health and SEO performance.
Key Optimization Strategies
To ensure your website is properly crawled and indexed by Ahrefs, implement these essential strategies:
Configure Your Robots.txt File
Your robots.txt file provides instructions to web crawlers about which parts of your site they can access. To properly manage AhrefsBot, use the correct user-agent strings:
The "Crawl-delay" directive specifies the minimum number of seconds that should pass between consecutive requests from the crawler. Setting an appropriate value helps balance crawl efficiency with server load.
Optimize Page Speed
Ahrefs prioritizes faster-loading pages in its crawl queue. Improving your site's performance not only benefits user experience and Google rankings but also ensures more efficient crawling by AhrefsBot. Key speed optimization tactics include:
- Optimizing image sizes
- Minimizing CSS and JavaScript
- Implementing browser caching
- Using a content delivery network (CDN)
- Reducing server response time
Ensure JavaScript Compatibility
Since late 2022, Ahrefs crawlers can render web pages and execute JavaScript, finding links that are generated dynamically. This capability is activated for pages with at least 15 referring domains pointing to them. For optimal results:
- Ensure critical content is not exclusively dependent on JavaScript
- Test your JavaScript implementation with rendering tools
- Use server-side rendering when possible for critical content
Implement a Clear Site Structure
Ahrefs crawlers, like all web crawlers, benefit from a logical and hierarchical site structure. This includes:
- Creating a clear navigation hierarchy
- Using breadcrumb navigation
- Implementing an XML sitemap
- Ensuring internal linking connects all important pages
Manage Crawl Budget Effectively
While Ahrefs doesn't have a strict "crawl budget" like Google, it does prioritize pages based on several factors:
- URL popularity (URL Rating) - Pages with higher quality backlinks get higher priority
- Website popularity (Domain Rating) - Websites with stronger backlink profiles get higher priority
- Page speed - Faster-loading pages are preferred to slower ones
- Website size - Small websites with high-quality links will likely be crawled in full, while larger websites might only be partially crawled
To optimize crawling, focus on building high-quality backlinks to your most important pages and ensure your site is technically sound.
Dealing with Crawler Issues
If you're experiencing problems with Ahrefs crawlers, check these common issues:
Server-Level Blocking
Sometimes, servers may inadvertently block AhrefsBot through firewall configurations or security modules like ModSecurity. Check your server logs to identify any blocking patterns.
CDN Protection
CDN services like Cloudflare or Sucuri might be configured to block bots, including AhrefsBot. Review your CDN settings to ensure legitimate crawlers are allowed.
Verify with Robot Checker
Ahrefs provides a robot checker tool at ahrefs.com/robot/site-audit that can help verify if your website can be properly crawled.
Conclusion
Optimizing your website for Ahrefs crawlers is an important aspect of a comprehensive SEO strategy. By implementing proper robots.txt configurations, improving page speed, ensuring JavaScript compatibility, creating clear site structures, and effectively managing crawl prioritization, you can enhance how Ahrefs crawlers interact with your site. This leads to better representation in Ahrefs tools and contributes to overall SEO performance.
Remember that while optimizing for Ahrefs is valuable, these same principles generally apply to other search engine crawlers as well, making your efforts doubly beneficial for your site's visibility and success.