What Shopify does for you
Many store owners start by hunting for technical faults in Shopify. The platform already takes care of a fair amount. Knowing what works out of the box lets you spend your time on what is missing.
| Area | What Shopify does | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Sitemap | Generates sitemap.xml on your domain with products, collections, pages and blog posts, and keeps it up to date. | Submit sitemap.xml in Google Search Console. With a separate domain per country, submit one for each domain. |
| Robots.txt | Ships a default file that keeps the cart, checkout and filtered or sorted collection pages out of crawling, among others. | Leave it alone unless you have a specific reason to change it. |
| Titles | Combines your store name and the page name when you leave the title field empty. | Write your own title for the most important collections and products. |
| Canonical | Your theme can output a canonical tag pointing to the preferred address. | Open a product through a collection and check in the page source that the canonical points to its address under /products/. |
Use collections as category pages
In Shopify, collections are your category pages. They are usually the pages that can answer broad searches, where the shopper wants to see a range. A product suits a precise search for one item better.
List the searches that matter most to your business, and write next to each one the collection that should answer it. If an important search has no collection, it may be worth creating one. If two collections answer the same search, consider merging them.
Give each important collection a short text that helps the shopper choose. That might be the difference between materials, sizes or uses. Write what the shopper needs, not a long text full of keywords. Our e-commerce SEO guide shows how to match searches to pages.
Write titles and meta descriptions
You find the fields at the bottom of every product, collection and page in your Shopify admin, in the search engine listing section. There you set the page title, the meta description and the URL handle. The home page has its own fields under Online Store and Preferences.
Shopify allows titles of up to 70 characters but recommends about 60, so the title is not cut off. A meta description should stay around 160 characters. Give every page its own title and description, and put the most important words first. Google may show a different title or snippet, and changes can take a couple of weeks to appear in results.
Here is a made-up example from a tea store. The title “Green tea 100g” says little. “Organic Japanese sencha green tea, 100 g” says what the product is, where it is from and how much you get. Only use details you know are true.
Never change an address without a redirect
Every collection and product has a URL handle, the last part of its address. Shopify advises against changing it often. If you do change it, the old address must send visitors and Google on to the new one. Otherwise they land on a page that does not exist.
When you change a collection's handle, Shopify can create the redirect for you. Always check that it was created, for products too. You can view and create redirects under Content, Menus and URL redirects, and import many at once from a CSV file.
A redirect only works when the old address returns a 404 error. Setting a product to draft or removing it from every sales channel gives exactly that 404. So point a discontinued product to a similar one if you have it. If not, a 404 is the honest answer. Do not send everything to the home page.
Make product pages useful
The product page is where the shopper decides. It is also the page that answers precise searches. Four things make the biggest difference in Shopify.
Product copy
Many stores use the supplier's text, so the same words appear on many other sites. Write what shoppers ask about, with measurements, materials and use. Our product description guide goes into the detail.
Image alt text
Write alt text in Shopify's media editor. Shopify recommends 125 characters or fewer and can suggest a text with AI. Read the suggestion, so it describes your actual image.
Variants
Colours and sizes are usually variants of one product that share one page. Only create separate products when shoppers search for the variant as an item of its own.
Structured data
Many themes output product data such as price and availability for search engines. Use Google's Rich Results Test to check that your page has it, that it matches what the shopper sees, and that an app is not adding a second set.
Be careful with filters, robots.txt and apps
Some changes do more harm than good. Check these three before you change anything in your theme.
Filters and sorting
Shopify's default robots.txt keeps filtered and sorted collections out of Google's crawl. If you want a particular filter to be found, make it a collection of its own with its own text instead.
robots.txt.liquid
You can change robots.txt with the robots.txt.liquid template. Shopify calls this an unsupported customisation and warns that a mistake can cost you all your traffic. Use Liquid rather than fixed rules, so the file keeps receiving Shopify's updates.
Apps and speed
Each app can add code to your pages. Review your apps regularly and remove the ones you do not use. Measure on a phone how a collection and a product load before and after.
Follow up in Search Console
Once your sitemap is submitted, Search Console shows which pages Google has indexed and why others are not. Pages excluded by robots.txt or with another canonical are often exactly as they should be. Look for important collections and products that are missing.
Note the date when you change titles or copy, and compare impressions, clicks and sales for the same pages afterwards. How to prioritise and follow up is in our e-commerce SEO guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shopify good for SEO?
Shopify gives you a solid base, because the sitemap, robots.txt and readable addresses are in place from the start. The result depends mostly on what you add yourself: collections, product copy, images and a structure that matches what shoppers search for.
Do I need an SEO app for Shopify?
Not necessarily. Titles, meta descriptions, alt text and redirects can all be handled in Shopify itself. An app can save time across many products, but check that it does not add code or structured data on top of what your theme already has.
What should I do with a product that is temporarily sold out?
Keep the product published and show that it is sold out. Setting it to draft makes the address return a 404, and the page can drop out of Google. Only redirect when the product is discontinued for good and there is a real replacement.