Title: Updating metadata via a recrawl
Author: joshua
Published: July 21, 2022
Last modified: July 21, 2026

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 1. [Installation resources](https://docs.parse.ly/installation-resources/)
 2. [Parse.ly Integration](https://docs.parse.ly/installation-resources/parsely-integration/)
 3. [Metadata](https://docs.parse.ly/installation-resources/parsely-integration/metadata/)
 4. [Crawler](https://docs.parse.ly/installation-resources/parsely-integration/metadata/crawler/)
 5. Updating metadata via a recrawl

#  Updating metadata via a recrawl

In a recrawl, we dispatch our web crawler to article URLs that already have metadata
in our system in order to update the metadata associated with those records. This
is useful in situations where you’ve configured your metadata incorrectly, for example,
or when you’ve decided to add richer metadata retroactively that you’d like to see
updated in your dashboard and API results.

#### Note

A recrawl will only apply new metadata to historical data for the three days prior
to the recrawl and forward. If you would like to correct additional historical data,
a rebuild of your historical data will be necessary. More information on rebuilds
is [available here](https://docs.parse.ly/whats-a-rebuild/).

There are five ways that we can update existing metadata with this process:

## Recrawl via Automatic Metadata Change Detection

Read more about [this opt-in feature](https://docs.parse.ly/automatically-update-metadata-changes/)
that automatically detects and updates your metadata.

## Recrawl via Check For Metadata Updates feature

Read more about how to manually [check for metadata updates](https://docs.parse.ly/check-for-metadata-updates/)
within each Post Details page.

[[

Check For Metadata Updates: a useful tool to update your dashboard after updating
your older content

## **Recrawl a single URL from the dashboard**

A local site administrator can submit individual URLs to recrawl via a form found
in the Parse.ly dashboard. This form is accessible via the API Settings page in 
the admin:

 1. Admins, click the site settings gear icon ⚙.
 2. Click API.
 3. Enter a valid URL. This will enable the Recrawl URL button.
 4. Click Recrawl URL.

[[

## **Trigger a new article crawl from the Parsely API**

**Pro tip**

The API Settings page is available to all admins, even if you’re not paying for 
access to the [Parse.ly API](https://docs.parse.ly/api/). This facilitates access
to the recrawl tools discussed in this article.

The crawl secret is different from the API secret and will not work if applied to
the [Parse.ly Plugin settings](https://docs.parse.ly/wordpress-plugin-setup/#h-basic-settings).

Normally, we crawl articles during the first 24 hours after publication when the
metadata is most likely to change. It is possible to notify our servers when you
update posts. To do that, obtain the URL for your endpoint containing your crawl
secret:

 1. Admins, click the site settings gear icon ⚙.
 2. Click API.
 3. Copy the URL containing `ping_crawl?secret=`

[[

 4. Append a URL to the URL found in Step 3.
 5. Submit a POST request to the resulting URL of Step 4.

If your CMS supports webhooks, you may be able to automate this process as well.

## **Request a bulk recrawl from Parse.ly Support**

If you have a large number of URLs that need updating, please contact [Parse.ly Support](https://support.parse.ly/hc/en-us)
to set up a bulk recrawl.

Last updated: July 21, 2026