One of the nice things about Shopify is how much technical SEO it handles without you lifting a finger. But it also has a few built-in quirks that confuse store owners, and occasionally waste Google's time crawling pages that don't matter. None of them are disasters. Most are easy to tidy up once you know what's going on.
Here are the ones worth understanding.
1. The same product at two addresses
A Shopify product can often be reached at two URLs:
/products/silver-jhumka/collections/earrings/products/silver-jhumka
Shopify adds a canonical tag to the longer version, telling Google that /products/silver-jhumka is the main one. That takes care of most of the risk. The remaining issue is that some themes link to the longer version from collection grids, so Google keeps finding and crawling duplicates.
The fix is to make sure product cards link to the plain /products/ URL. Most modern themes already do; older or customised ones sometimes don't.
2. Canonical tags
Every page should have exactly one canonical tag pointing to its preferred address. Check your theme includes <link rel="canonical" href="{{ canonical_url }}"> in the head, that paginated and filtered pages behave sensibly, and that no app is overriding canonicals in odd ways.
3. Sitemaps
Shopify builds /sitemap.xml for you, with separate sitemaps for products, collections, pages and blog posts, and keeps it updated automatically. All you need to do is submit it in Google Search Console and glance at the report now and then for errors.
4. Robots.txt
Shopify's default robots.txt already stops search engines crawling the cart, checkout, account pages, internal search and many filter and sort URLs. For almost every store, that default is right. You can customise it with a robots.txt.liquid template, but only if you know exactly why. One wrong line can block pages you want in Google.
5. Pages that shouldn't rank
Every store collects a few: empty or nearly empty collections, tag pages with one product, leftover test products and pages. Delete the ones you don't need. For the rest, Shopify's seo.hidden metafield adds a noindex tag, which tells Google to leave them out.
6. Redirects when things change
If you change a URL handle, delete a product or remove a collection, a 301 redirect sends visitors and Google to the right place. When you edit a handle in the admin, Shopify offers to create one for you. That said, the best approach is to choose good URLs from the start and avoid changing them, so you rarely need redirects at all.
7. Structured data
Structured data helps Google understand your pages and can unlock extras in search results, such as prices and review stars. You want Product markup (with price, availability and reviews) on product pages, Organization or LocalBusiness on the homepage, BreadcrumbList on products and collections, and Article markup on blog posts.
Run a few pages through Google's Rich Results Test. Watch for apps adding a second, conflicting set of Product markup; it happens more than you'd think.
8. Titles and headings set by the theme
Many themes automatically add your store name to every page title. If your titles already include your brand, you end up with it twice, or with titles too long to show fully in Google. It's also worth checking each template has exactly one H1: the product name on products, the collection name on collections, and a real heading on the homepage. We fixed exactly this on our own site.
9. Multiple domains and markets
If you sell internationally with Shopify Markets, Shopify adds hreflang tags for you. Just make sure your primary domain is set and any other domains point to it.
10. Speed
Speed is technical SEO too, and on Shopify, apps and scripts are usually to blame. See why Shopify stores slow down and our Core Web Vitals guide.
A 30-minute technical check
- Open Search Console's Pages report and look for errors or "duplicate" warnings.
- Hover over products in a collection grid and check where the links go.
- View the source of your homepage, a collection and a product. Look for one canonical, one H1 and a sensible title.
- Test a product page and the homepage in the Rich Results Test.
- Check your URL redirects list for anything that looks wrong or out of date.
Two common questions
Can I change Shopify's URL structure? No. The /products/ and /collections/ parts are fixed. It doesn't stop stores ranking well.
Will duplicate URLs get me penalised? No. They can waste crawling and split signals a little, but canonical tags and clean internal links take care of most of it.
Want someone to go through this for you? Technical fixes and regular site health checks are part of our Monthly SEO package. Get in touch.