Shopify SEO checklist: what to check and what Shopify already does

Updated 22 October 2026 · 5 min read

SHORT ANSWER

Shopify creates your sitemap and some structured data automatically. The rest is yours: verify the store in Google Search Console and submit the sitemap, write unique titles and descriptions for every product and collection, add useful collection text and image alt text, keep crawl rules open, and keep the store fast on phones.

Shopify does a lot of technical SEO for you. Its own help centre says it generates sitemaps and structured data automatically. That is a good start, not the finish. These are the checks that are still up to you.

Search Console first

Verify your store in Google Search Console and submit the sitemap at yourstore.com/sitemap.xml.
Check the Pages report for product and collection pages that are not indexed, and why.
Watch which search terms bring impressions to which pages; that tells you what Google thinks each page is about.

Titles and descriptions

Give every product, collection and page a unique, descriptive title. Shopify suggests keeping titles to about 60 characters so they are not cut short.
Write a plain, specific meta description for each one; Shopify recommends around 160 characters.
Name the product type and the detail people search for, such as material, size or use, rather than only a brand or style name.

Collections and products

Give important collections a short, useful introduction, not just a grid of products.
Write product descriptions that answer the questions a shopper would ask a salesperson.
Organise menus logically, and use descriptive link text for internal links.
Use descriptive image file names and alt text.

Crawling and speed

If you edit robots.txt.liquid, test that you have not blocked product, collection or asset paths you need crawled.
Allow the search crawlers you want, including OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot if you want to appear in those AI tools.
Check speed on a real phone. Heavy apps and large images are the usual causes of slow Shopify pages.

Product data beyond the store

Your theme's structured data and your Google Merchant Center feed should agree with the page: same price, currency, availability and identifiers. Mismatches can get products disapproved in Shopping and make AI shopping tools less sure about you. Our free store scan checks these on your live store in about 20 seconds.

Common questions

Does Shopify do SEO automatically?

Partly. Shopify's help centre says it generates sitemaps and structured data automatically. Titles, descriptions, content, images and Search Console setup are still up to you.

Where is my Shopify sitemap?

At yourstore.com/sitemap.xml. Shopify creates it automatically; submit it in Google Search Console under Indexing > Sitemaps.

Sources

Free tools: AI crawler checker · llms.txt generator · robots.txt AI rules generator