docs: update prerender documentation (#22471)

docs/1.getting-started/10.deployment.md

@@ -81,52 +81,61 @@ There are two ways to deploy a Nuxt application to any static hosting services:
 
 ### Crawl-based Pre-rendering
 
-Use the [`nuxi generate` command](/docs/api/commands/generate) to build your application. For every page, Nuxt uses a crawler to generate a corresponding HTML and payload files. The built files will be generated in the `.output/public` directory.
+Use the [`nuxi generate` command](/docs/api/commands/generate) to build and pre-render your application using the [Nitro](/docs/guide/concepts/server-engine) crawler. This command is similar to `nuxt build` with the `nitro.static` option set to `true`, or running `nuxt build --prerender`.
 
 ```bash
 npx nuxi generate
 ```
 
-You can enable crawl-based pre-rendering when using `nuxt build` in the `nuxt.config` file:
+That's it! You can now deploy the `.output/public` directory to any static hosting service or preview it locally with `npx serve .output/public`.
 
-```ts [nuxt.config.ts|js]
-defineNuxtConfig({
-  nitro: {
-    prerender: {
-      crawlLinks: true
-    }
-  }
-})
-```
+Working of the Nitro crawler:
+
+1. Load the HTML of your application's root route (`/`), any non-dynamic pages in your `~/pages` directory, and any other routes in the `nitro.prerender.routes` array.
+2. Save the HTML and `payload.json` to the `~/.output/public/` directory to be served statically.
+3. Find all anchor tags (`<a href="...">`) in the HTML to navigate to other routes.
+4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each anchor tag found until there are no more anchor tags to crawl.
+
+This is important to understand since pages that are not linked to a discoverable page can't be pre-rendered automatically.
+
+::alert{type=info}
+Read more about the [`nuxi generate` command](/docs/api/commands/generate#nuxi-generate).
+::
 
 ### Selective Pre-rendering
 
-You can manually specify routes that [Nitro](/docs/guide/concepts/server-engine) will fetch and pre-render during the build.
+You can manually specify routes that [Nitro](/docs/guide/concepts/server-engine) will fetch and pre-render during the build or ignore routes that you don't want to pre-render like `/dynamic` in the `nuxt.config` file:
 
 ```ts [nuxt.config.ts|js]
 defineNuxtConfig({
   nitro: {
     prerender: {
       routes: ['/user/1', '/user/2']
+      ignore: ['/dynamic']
     }
   }
 })
 ```
 
-When using this option with `nuxi build`, static payloads won't be generated by default at build time. For now, selective payload generation is under an experimental flag.
+You can combine this with the `crawLinks` option to pre-render a set of routes that the crawler can't discover like your `/sitemap.xml` or `/robots.txt`:
 
 ```ts [nuxt.config.ts|js]
 defineNuxtConfig({
-  /* The /dynamic route won't be crawled */
   nitro: {
-    prerender: { crawlLinks: true, ignore: ['/dynamic'] }
-  },
-  experimental: {
-    payloadExtraction: true
+    prerender: {
+      crawlLinks: true,
+      routes: ['/sitemap.xml', '/robots.txt']
+    }
   }
 })
 ```
 
+Setting `nitro.prerender` to `true` is similar to `nitro.prerender.crawlLinks` to `true`.
+
+::alert{type=info}
+Read more about [pre-rendering](https://nitro.unjs.io/config#prerender) in the Nitro documentation.
+::
+
 ### Client-side Only Rendering
 
 If you don't want to pre-render your routes, another way of using static hosting is to set the `ssr` property to `false` in the `nuxt.config` file. The `nuxi generate` command will then output an `.output/public/index.html` entrypoint and JavaScript bundles like a classic client-side Vue.js application.

docs/3.api/5.commands/generate.md

@@ -15,3 +15,7 @@ Option        | Default          | Description
 -------------------------|-----------------|------------------
 `rootDir` | `.` | The root directory of the application to generate
 `--dotenv` | `.` | Point to another `.env` file to load, **relative** to the root directory.
+
+::alert{type=info}
+Read more about [pre-rendering and static hosting](/docs/1.getting-started/10.deployment.md#static-hosting).
+::