> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://support.storefront.co.za/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://support.storefront.co.za/release-notes/enhancements/2025-enhancements/may-2025-enhancements/filter-url-crawling-issue-mitigation-applied.md).

# Filter URL Crawling Issue (Mitigation Applied)

**Known Issue:**

Automated bots have been crawling filter URLs, especially where **multi-select filters** are in use. This has resulted in an excessive number of requests and unnecessary server load.

**What we’ve done:**

We’ve replaced the href attributes on filter \<a> tags with a custom data-filter attribute.

* A jQuery event now listens for user interaction and manually redirects to the selected filter.
* This approach reduces the exposure of filter URLs to basic web scrapers and mitigates request overload.

**Note:**

This does not prevent **advanced bots** that simulate a browser and interact with the page (e.g. headless browsers), but it significantly reduces the impact of standard link crawlers.