CrawlFixer FAQ

Customer FAQ for CrawlFixer.

The product

What does CrawlFixer do?

Bolt, Replit and plain Vite/React projects are usually single-page apps (SPAs). The server sends an almost empty HTML file, and JavaScript draws the page in the browser. Search crawlers often see a blank page.

You point your custom domain at CrawlFixer with one DNS record. After that:

• Bots get a fully rendered page. When Googlebot, Bingbot, social link-preview bots (Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Slack, Discord and others) or AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and others) request a page, CrawlFixer serves a rendered HTML snapshot of it.
• Humans get your normal app. Visitors, images, scripts and form submissions go straight through to your original host unchanged.
• Missing tags get added. If the rendered page is missing a title, description, canonical, Open Graph or Twitter tag, CrawlFixer fills it in.
• You get a sitemap and robots.txt. /sitemap.xml is your own sitemap if you have a real one. If you don't, CrawlFixer builds one from the pages it has rendered. /robots.txt is your own file (or a default "allow all"), with a Sitemap line added.
• You get a weekly crawl report by email every Monday morning (Mountain Time).

Snapshots are cached and refreshed every 7 days, and also weekly on a schedule.

Do I need to change my project?

No. You don't rebuild anything or change your code. Setup is one DNS change on your custom domain.

Is serving bots a prerendered page "cloaking"?

No. Google allows "dynamic rendering" as long as bots get the same content humans see. CrawlFixer renders your real page; it doesn't create different content.

Doesn't Google run JavaScript anyway?

Sometimes. JavaScript rendering goes into a separate, delayed queue, and many SPA pages get indexed late, partly or not at all. Many other crawlers (Bing, ChatGPT, and social previews on Slack, X and Facebook) often don't run JavaScript at all.

Does it work with Lovable?

• Sites hosted by Lovable don't need CrawlFixer: they're already rendered for Google.
• Lovable projects you exported and host yourself on Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare or similar are regular client-rendered SPAs, and CrawlFixer can help.

The free checker can't see what Google sees on a Lovable-hosted site, because Lovable only serves rendered pages to verified Google crawlers. Use URL Inspection in Google Search Console instead.

Which platforms does it work with?

Bolt, Replit, React SPAs, and Lovable exports hosted elsewhere, on hosts such as Netlify, Vercel or Cloudflare Pages. You need a custom domain. Free platform addresses (*.bolt.new, *.replit.app, *.netlify.app, *.vercel.app, *.pages.dev and so on) can't be connected directly.

What does the free checker do?

Paste a URL on crawlfixer.com. The checker fetches the page the way Googlebot does (no JavaScript) and also renders it like a real browser. It then compares the text, title, description, H1, links, canonical, robots.txt and sitemap.xml. No signup is needed, and it only fetches public pages. Results aren't a guarantee of ranking or indexing.

Will CrawlFixer break my site?

For visitors, CrawlFixer passes requests through to your original host unchanged. If your subscription ends, all traffic, bots included, goes straight to your original site.

You can confirm a bot was served a rendered page: the response carries the header x-crawlfixer: prerendered-cache or prerendered-fresh.

Does CrawlFixer guarantee indexing or rankings?

No. CrawlFixer makes your content visible to crawlers. Google still decides what to index and how to rank it.

Setup

For full steps, see help-connecting.md. In short:

1. Subscribe, then sign in at crawlfixer.com/account with your checkout email (we send a sign-in link).
2. Add your site: your custom domain (e.g. www.yourbusiness.com) and the address where your app lives now (e.g. yourapp.netlify.app).
3. At your DNS provider, add www CNAME customers.crawlfixer.com.
4. Wait 5 to 30 minutes, then press Check connection.
5. Once it says connected, submit https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml in Google Search Console.

How long does it take?

• DNS: usually 5 to 30 minutes, and sometimes up to an hour.
• Secure certificate (HTTPS): usually ready within 15 minutes after DNS points to CrawlFixer.
• First snapshot: made on the first bot visit, or during the weekly refresh.
• Google re-indexing: that's up to Google, so we can't promise a timeline. Google usually recrawls within days to a few weeks. To speed it up, use URL Inspection → Request indexing in Google Search Console.

Can I use my root domain (example.com without www)?

Always connect www and redirect the root domain (example.com) to https://www.example.com. See the help doc for redirect steps per provider.

Pricing and billing

• Prices are in USD and don't include any applicable taxes.
• Payment is handled by Square. Annual plans are billed once a year in advance.
• Plans renew automatically at the end of each billing period, charged to the card you used at checkout.
• Site includes prerendering for all crawlers, automatic meta tags and sitemap, and the weekly crawl report. Agency adds client-ready reports (the weekly per-site report emails, which you can forward to your clients) and priority support (Agency emails get answered first).

How do I cancel?

1. Go to crawlfixer.com/account ("Manage or cancel subscription").
2. Enter your checkout email and use the sign-in link we send you.
3. Press Cancel subscription, then confirm.

You won't be charged again, and your plan stays active until the end of the period you've already paid for. You'll get a confirmation email. After that, CrawlFixer stops rendering for bots, but as long as your DNS still points to CrawlFixer and your site is in your account, all traffic (bots included) is passed straight through to your original host, so your site keeps working. To leave completely, point your www record back to your original host. If you remove the site from your account while DNS still points to CrawlFixer, visitors get a "not connected" message, so change DNS first.

Refunds?

Partial billing periods aren't refunded automatically, including the unused part of an annual plan. If something went wrong, email info@crawlfixer.com and we'll review refund requests case by case.

Can I change plans or switch between monthly and annual?

Email info@crawlfixer.com to change plans (Site ↔ Agency, or monthly ↔ annual).

Can I move my plan to a different site?

Yes, within your plan's site limit. In your account you can remove a site and add another. When you remove a site, point its DNS back to your original host.

Contact

Support is by email at info@crawlfixer.com. We reply within 1 business day.

CrawlFixer is not affiliated with Google, Lovable, Bolt, Replit, Netlify, Vercel or Cloudflare.