Specialist SEO
Shopify SEO Services That Work With the Platform, Not Against It
Shopify takes hosting, security and checkout off your plate, and in exchange it decides how your URLs look, what the sitemap contains and how much of the code you can reach. Good results on Shopify come from knowing exactly where those lines sit.
- years in SEO
- 6+
- client websites worked on
- 60+
- person doing the work
- 1
Shopify SEO: what the platform handles and what is left to you
Shopify SEO is the work of getting a Shopify store's products, collections and content found in search despite, and sometimes because of, the decisions the platform makes for you, and my service covers the parts Shopify leaves to the store owner: handles, theme code, apps, auto-generated URLs, international setup and redirects. Shopify gets a lot right out of the box. It adds canonical tags, builds an XML sitemap, serves pages over HTTPS from a fast network and lets you edit titles and descriptions without a plugin.
What it does not do is decide which of your pages should exist in Google, or stop your theme and apps working against you. A small catalogue with three apps runs fine on the defaults; thousands of products, overlapping collections, fifteen apps and four markets usually do not.
This page is about the platform. The commercial side of store SEO - which categories carry your margin, how to plan seasonal demand, what to report - sits on my e-commerce SEO services page, and it applies whichever platform you run on.
Key takeaways
- Shopify's URL prefixes - /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/ - cannot be removed. Effort is better spent on handles, internal links and templates.
- Most duplicate URL problems on Shopify are created by the theme's product links, not by the platform's canonical tags, so the fix usually lives in a theme snippet.
- Apps are the biggest variable in Shopify speed. Uninstalling one does not always remove the code it added to the theme.
- Tag pages, vendor and type collections, /collections/all and filter parameters are where Shopify stores quietly multiply their crawlable URLs.
- Markets, the robots.txt.liquid template and the URL redirects list give you more control than most owners realise, and all three are easy to misconfigure.
What's included in my Shopify SEO services
Eight areas, each tied to a part of Shopify that behaves differently from a self-hosted site. A small store may need three of them; a large catalogue selling into several countries usually needs all eight.
Handles and URL paths planned around the prefixes Shopify will not let you drop
Every product sits under /products/ and every collection under /collections/, whatever you would prefer. What you do control is the handle - the last part of the URL - and how consistently it is chosen. I audit handles for auto-generated junk (copy suffixes like -1 and -copy, SKU codes, old season names), plan clean ones for new ranges and only change live handles where the gain justifies a redirect.
- Handle audit across products, collections, pages and blog posts
- Naming rules your merchandisers can follow when adding stock
- Change list limited to handles worth a redirect
Collection-aware product links rewritten so crawlers meet one product address
Many themes link from a collection grid to /collections/boots/products/model-x rather than /products/model-x. The canonical tag points back to the main product URL, but every internal link still sends crawlers down a second path and splits the signals your links carry. I find where the theme builds those links - product cards, breadcrumbs, related-product blocks, search results - and brief the change so every link uses the main address.
- Crawl showing how many collection-path URLs are reachable
- Snippet-level change brief for your developer
- Breadcrumbs that still reflect the shopper's route
Theme template SEO: headings, sections and metafields that scale across a catalogue
Online Store 2.0 themes build pages from JSON templates and sections, which makes it easy for a heading to end up as an H1 twice or not at all. I review the product, collection, page and article templates for heading order, title and meta description defaults, and how much unique copy each one can carry. Metafields and alternate templates let a priority collection hold buying-help copy without changing every other collection.
- One H1 per template, set from the right field
- Search engine listing defaults for titles and descriptions
- Metafield plan for category copy, FAQs and specifications
An app audit that weighs each app's sales value against its script cost
Reviews, upsells, wishlists, chat, pop-ups and tracking pixels each add requests to every page they touch. I map which apps load where, measure their effect on the product and collection templates, and look for leftovers - snippets and script tags from apps you removed months ago. You get a keep, replace or remove list, plus the theme clean-up needed for apps that are already gone.
- Script inventory per template, by app
- Leftover code from uninstalled apps
- Core Web Vitals on product and collection templates
Tag pages, filter parameters and auto-generated collections kept out of the index
Shopify creates URLs you never asked for: tag-filtered collections, /collections/vendors and /collections/types listings, /collections/all and blog tag archives. Storefront filters add their own filter. parameters on top. I decide which of these deserve indexing, which get a noindex in the theme, and which belong in a custom robots.txt.liquid rule, keeping the defaults Shopify already ships for cart, checkout and internal search.
- Inventory of auto-generated and parameter URLs
- Noindex rules set in the theme layout where needed
- robots.txt.liquid edits that extend, not replace, the defaults
Product structured data checked against what themes and review apps output
Most themes print some Product markup, and review apps often print their own, so a product page can carry two conflicting versions. I check what is output, remove the duplicate, fill the gaps that matter for shopping results - price, availability, brand, identifiers, reviews where they are genuine - and compare it with the feed going to Merchant Center through Shopify's Google channel.
- Duplicate and conflicting markup removed
- Offer details matched to the page and the feed
- BreadcrumbList and Organization markup where missing
Shopify Markets setup for subfolders, domains and hreflang across countries
Markets can serve each country from a subfolder such as /en-gb/ or from its own domain, and adds hreflang for you. Problems start when prices, currencies and translations differ without the content following, or when visitors are redirected by location and crawlers never see the alternatives. I check the structure against international SEO principles before more markets are added.
- Market structure: subfolders or separate domains
- Hreflang output tested on live pages
- Location redirects replaced with a market selector
URL redirects managed in bulk, before handles change and after products retire
Shopify offers to create a redirect when you edit a handle, and keeps a URL redirects list you can import and export as a CSV. Both get neglected: redirects pile up into chains, discontinued products return a 404 and nobody checks what still links to them. I tidy the list, set a retirement rule for old products and plan redirect batches before range changes go live.
- Redirect chains collapsed to one hop
- 404 report from Search Console and crawl data
- Retired product rule: redirect, keep live or remove
Experience
Shopify SEO from someone who has done it many times
You work with me from the first call to the last report. No account managers, no hand-offs to a junior team.
Book a free call- years in SEO
- 6+
- client websites worked on
- 60+
- documented case studies
- 35
The Shopify URLs I review on every store, and the usual verdict
Shopify generates more addresses than most owners know about. These are the ones a crawl turns up most often, with where I normally land; the store's own data can change the answer.
| Shopify URL | Where it comes from | Usual verdict |
|---|---|---|
| /products/handle | The main product address | Indexed; the only product URL your internal links should use |
| /collections/handle/products/handle | Collection-aware links in the theme | Canonicalised by Shopify already; theme links changed to the main product URL |
| /collections/handle/tag-name | Tag filtering on a collection | Noindexed unless the tag matches a real search, in which case it becomes a proper collection |
| /collections/vendors?q=brand and /collections/types?q=type | Automatic vendor and product type listings | Kept out of the index; brand pages built as real collections instead |
| /collections/all | Default listing of every product | Hidden from navigation and noindexed, or redirected where nothing links to it |
| Collection URLs with filter. or sort_by parameters | Storefront filtering and sorting | Left for shoppers, kept away from crawlers |
| /blogs/news/tagged/tag-name | Blog tag archives | Noindexed in most cases; thin lists of posts rarely rank |
| ?variant= on product URLs | Variant selection | Canonicalises to the product; separate pages only where a variant has its own demand |
What you can change on Shopify, and what you have to accept
Half of a good Shopify plan is not wasting budget on things the platform will not allow. This is the split I work to.
Within your control
- Handles, titles, meta descriptions and image alt text
- Theme templates, sections, heading tags and internal links
- Noindex rules and robots.txt.liquid additions
- Which apps run, and where their scripts load
- Redirects, collection structure and navigation menus
- Market structure, translations and structured data
Set by Shopify
- The /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/ prefixes
- The automatically generated sitemap and its contents
- Checkout pages and their URLs
- Server configuration, hosting and response headers
- The existence of vendor, type and /collections/all listings
- Some app behaviour, unless the app offers settings for it
Free review
Get a free Shopify SEO review
Send me your site. Before the call I look at your rankings and pages, then tell you what I would fix first and what it is likely worth.
How a Shopify engagement runs, from access to handover
I work as a collaborator on your store with read access first, then as a reviewer of changes your developer or theme partner makes.
- 1
Collaborator access and a full crawl
You add me as a collaborator with the permissions we agree. I crawl the store as Google sees it, connect Search Console and GA4, and pull the app list, theme version and market setup.
- 2
Platform audit
Every area in the tabs above is checked and scored by effort and likely gain. The output is a ticket list sorted into theme changes, settings changes, app decisions and content work.
- 3
Changes on a duplicate theme
Theme changes go onto a duplicate of your live theme, so nothing reaches shoppers until it has been reviewed in preview. Settings and redirects are changed in batches with a record of each one.
- 4
Publish, verify and hand over
Once the duplicate theme is live, I re-crawl, test markup and speed on real templates and watch indexing in Search Console. After that you either keep me on monthly for new ranges and app changes, or take the documented rules in-house.
Before you install the next app
Every Shopify app is a small decision about speed and indexing
An app that adds reviews, bundles or a size guide can lift sales, and it can also add scripts to every page, print its own structured data or create pages of its own. I am not against apps - I am against nobody checking them. Before an install, ask what the app loads, on which templates, and whether it leaves code behind when removed. If nobody on the team can answer, that is worth a quick review first.
Headless Shopify, an SEO app or platform work: which fits
Store owners often ask whether a new tool or a rebuild will solve what is really a configuration problem. This is how I would compare the three routes.
| Route | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| An SEO app on its own | Bulk editing titles, alt text and basic markup on a small catalogue | Apps cannot change theme links or which URLs Shopify generates, and some add their own scripts |
| Platform-level SEO work | Most stores: theme, apps, URLs, markets and redirects fixed where they are set | Needs a developer or theme partner to apply the theme changes |
| Going headless (Hydrogen or another front end) | Large brands needing full control of templates and URLs | Rendering, sitemaps, canonicals and redirects all become your team's job; a rebuild is a migration |
Where Shopify work connects to the rest of your search programme
Platform fixes make the store crawlable and quick; they do not decide what each collection should rank for. That planning belongs to keyword research and the category and product page work under on-page SEO. Crawl and rendering problems that go beyond Shopify's settings - JavaScript-heavy themes, a headless front end, log-file questions - are handled as technical SEO.
If you are moving onto Shopify from WooCommerce, Magento or a custom build, the redirect map and launch checks come under SEO migration, and starting that work early matters far more than any setting covered here. Stores run on WordPress instead can read about WooCommerce SEO, which has a very different set of problems.
Not sure where your store stands? An SEO audit covers the whole site; the review offered here looks only at the Shopify layer.
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Shopify SEO Services FAQs
What do your Shopify SEO services cover that an SEO app does not?
Apps edit fields: titles, alt text, some markup. They cannot change how your theme builds internal links, which auto-generated URLs get indexed, how apps load their scripts or how your markets are set up. My work covers those platform decisions and briefs theme changes for your developer. An app can still be useful for bulk edits once the structure is right.
Can I remove /products/ and /collections/ from my Shopify URLs?
Not on a standard Shopify storefront. The prefixes are fixed, and apps that claim to remove them generally rely on redirects or proxies that add complexity without a clear ranking benefit. Google handles these paths without trouble. Your effort is better spent on clean handles, sensible collection structure and internal links pointing at the main product URL.
Do I need a developer for Shopify SEO work?
For theme changes, usually yes, or someone comfortable editing Liquid. Settings, redirects, metafield content, titles and app decisions can be handled by your team with my instructions. I write theme changes as precise tickets and review them on a duplicate theme before publishing, so a freelancer or your theme partner can make them safely.
Will moving to a new Shopify theme hurt my rankings?
It can, because a new theme changes templates, heading structure, internal links, structured data and app integrations all at once. Treat a theme change like a small migration: crawl both versions, compare the templates, check markup and speed in preview, and publish only when the differences are deliberate. URLs stay the same, which removes the biggest risk.
How does Shopify Markets affect SEO?
Markets lets you serve countries from subfolders or separate domains and outputs hreflang so Google can show the right version. The risks are automatic location redirects that stop crawlers reaching other versions, untranslated content behind translated URLs, and markets added before anyone has checked demand. Done well it is a solid base for selling abroad.
Send me your store for a Shopify SEO platform review
Share your store URL, theme name and the apps you rely on. In a free call I will go through what a quick crawl shows about collection links, auto-generated URLs and app weight, and which fixes are worth doing before anything else.