ps_facetedsearch should not expose every filter combination as crawlable href links

[tinamrak]

I published a real-world case study about ps_facetedsearch creating a crawl trap in PrestaShop.

A store with around 2,000 real pages ended up exposing hundreds of thousands of faceted URLs because filter combinations were rendered as normal crawlable links.

This caused bot crawling, Plesk / Fail2Ban blocking CDN IPs, Googlebot receiving 500 errors, and eventually deindexing of real URLs.

I think the module needs a built-in option to render filters as non-crawlable controls while keeping AJAX filtering for users.

Suggested options:

• render filters as buttons/spans instead of crawlable anchors
• keep filter URLs in data-search-url
• let merchants choose which facets are indexable
• block multi-filter combinations from being exposed as href links
• add SEO controls for canonical/noindex behavior

Blog post with details and workaround:
PrestaShop faceted search creating thousands of URLs, Plesk blocking Bunny CDN IPs, and Google deindexing pages

Related issue:
#34415

[Hlavtox]

@tinamrak Hi, at least in my theme, the facets are not links to crawl. So, if the bot crawls it, it's just a stupid bot.

And for this reason, we have implemented a block that blocks these pages from indexation - #37066.

<section class="facet__block">
    <div class="facet__header">
        <p class="facet__title">Material</p>
        <a href="#facet_55840" class="icon-collapse visible--mobile stretched-link" data-toggle="collapse">
            <i class="material-icons"></i>
        </a>
    </div>
    <div id="facet_55840" class="collpase--facet collapse  checkbox-facet">
        <div class="custom-control custom-checkbox">
            <input id="facet_input_55840_0"
                data-search-url="https://eshop-franke.cz/463-kuchynske-drezy?q=Material-Granit"
                type="checkbox" class="custom-control-input">
            <label class="custom-control-label" for="facet_input_55840_0">
                <span class="color__label">Granit</span>
            </label>
        </div>
        <div class="custom-control custom-checkbox">
            <input id="facet_input_55840_1"
                data-search-url="https://eshop-franke.cz/463-kuchynske-drezy?q=Material-Keramika"
                type="checkbox" class="custom-control-input">
            <label class="custom-control-label" for="facet_input_55840_1">
                <span class="color__label">Keramika</span>
            </label>
        </div>
    </div>
</section>

[tinamrak]

@Hlavtox Mine is a similar solution, with added .htaccess blocking. Just having noindex did not work for us. Claudebot, gpt, meta, and google were still crawling these links. Google also indexed them.

[9fskp3]

Hello,

That's right, each faceted search element generates thousands of URLs, which has significant consequences for e-commerce sites, for example.

Many bots, including Google and other AI bots, overwhelm servers with hundreds of thousands of requests.

I agree with the suggested options:

• render filters as buttons/spans instead of crawlable anchors
• let merchants choose which facets are indexable
• block multi-filter combinations from being exposed as href links
• add SEO controls for canonical/noindex behavior

How can we ensure that ps-faceted-search natively includes settings within the module to manage this manually without having to modify the code or develop custom fixes?

Another solution was also provided for this ticket : #40335