Not every SEO issue shows up on the surface. You might have strong content, a polished storefront, and a steady stream of traffic, but if search engines can’t efficiently crawl or index your Shopify site, growth will eventually plateau.
Technical SEO often goes unnoticed, but it’s foundational to search performance. From sluggish load times to duplicate URLs and crawl issues, seemingly minor problems can quietly restrict your visibility and impact.
In this post, we’ll break down the key areas of technical SEO for Shopify and offer actionable fixes.
Site Speed and Core Web Vitals
Site performance affects both rankings and user behavior, and Google’s Core Web Vitals are now part of its ranking system. Shopify stores often face speed challenges due to theme bloat, excessive JavaScript, or poorly optimized third-party apps.
Key Metrics to Watch:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Measures how quickly your main content loads.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Detects visual stability as the page loads
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint): Measures responsiveness to user interactions.
What You Can Do:
- Compress and serve images in next-gen formats like WebP.
- Use responsive image sizes and lazy loading for below the fold images.
- Audit and remove unused or redundant apps that inject unnecessary scripts.
- Minify CSS and JavaScript, and defer non-critical resources to reduce render-blocking.
Tools to Use: PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, Shopify Analyzer.
Technical SEO Errors to Monitor
Technical errors can silently undermine your SEO performance, even when your products and content are strong. Shopify merchants should regularly audit their site for:
- Broken internal links (from deleted or unpublished products)
- Redirect chains (especially after migrations or collection reorganizations)
- Theme errors or missing template references post-app uninstall
What You Can Do:
- Use tools to crawl your site and identify 404s, redirect loops, and server errors.
- Monitor Google Search Console for crawl anomalies or spike in error types.
- Use Shopify’s built-in redirect feature to manage 301s for removed or restructured URLs.
Tools to Use: Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, or Sitebulb, Google Search Console
Crawlability and Indexability
If search engines can’t efficiently crawl your site, they may overlook valuable content—or waste resources on low-priority pages. Shopify stores often generate unnecessary or duplicate URLs from tag pages, internal search results, and filtered collections.
Common culprits:
- Tag or filter URLs (e.g., ?sort_by= or /tagged/)
- Internal search results (e.g., /search?q=)
- Products in multiple collections with duplicate paths
What You Can Do:
- Edit the robots.txt.liquid file to block low-value pages from being crawled.
- Apply noindex meta tags to templates for internal search, filters, or discontinued products.
- Use Google Search Console to review indexed and non-indexed pages and plan your cleanup accordingly.
By managing what gets crawled and indexed, you improve focus on high-value pages, reduce duplicate content, and preserve crawl efficiency.
Work with a Trusted Shopify SEO Agency
You’ve built your brand—now let’s take it to the top. Optimize for higher rankings and more qualified traffic.
Canonicalization and Duplicate Content
Shopify’s URL structure can result in duplicate content—especially when products are accessible through multiple collections or URL parameters.
Although Shopify includes automatic canonical tags, these aren’t always correctly implemented across custom themes or modified templates.
What You Can Do:
- Confirm that canonical tags dynamically point to the correct base URL (not collection-specific variations).
- Use Shopify’s {{ canonical_url }} object in your theme to avoid hardcoded values.
- For advanced control, consider adding a custom canonical metafield and updating your theme code to conditionally pull that value.
Ensuring correct canonicalization helps consolidate link equity, avoid diluted rankings, and keep your site’s SEO footprint clean.
Structured Data and Schema Markup
Schema markup gives search engines more context about your content and can unlock rich snippets in the SERPs. Shopify includes some structured data out of the box, but it’s often incomplete or not customized to your products.
What You Can Do:
- Add or update schema using JSON-LD to include Product, Offer, Review, and Breadcrumb data.
- Validate your structured data using Google’s Rich Results Test.
- Consider apps that inject schema cleanly—or have your Shopify developer implement it directly in your theme.
Need Help With Shopify Technical SEO?
At IntuitSolutions, we specialize in uncovering and resolving Shopify SEO issues that merchants often overlook. Whether you’re looking for a one-time audit or hands-on development support, our team is here to help you improve speed, structure, and search performance.
Let’s Talk Shopify SEO. Request a technical SEO audit or speak with our team about optimizing your site for better rankings and a better experience.
Work with a Trusted Shopify SEO Agency
You’ve built your brand—now let’s take it to the top. Optimize for higher rankings and more qualified traffic.
