Key Takeaways
- Technical SEO is the foundation — content and backlinks can’t compensate for a broken site structure
- Broken links, 404 errors, and redirect chains are the most common and most impactful technical issues on Shopify stores
- Many technical SEO issues on Shopify can be resolved without a developer
- Audit quarterly; fix broken links monthly
Technical SEO is the part of search optimization that most content guides ignore. Keywords, content quality, and backlinks matter — but they all underperform if the technical foundation is broken. Googlebot needs to be able to crawl your store efficiently, understand its structure, and index your most important pages.
This checklist covers every major technical SEO area for Shopify, with specific actions you can take without a developer for most items.
1. Crawlability
Googlebot can only rank pages it can crawl. These checks ensure there’s nothing blocking it.
Check your robots.txt
Your Shopify store’s robots.txt is at yourstore.com/robots.txt. Review it to ensure you haven’t accidentally blocked important pages or sections. Shopify’s default robots.txt is reasonable, but custom modifications can cause problems.
Look for Disallow rules that cover paths you actually want indexed, such as /products/ or /collections/.
Check for noindex tags
Pages with <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> are excluded from Google’s index intentionally — but sometimes these tags end up on pages unintentionally through theme customizations or app modifications.
Use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to check your most important pages for unexpected noindex tags.
Verify Googlebot can access your store
If your store is password-protected (even partially), Googlebot can’t crawl it. Remove any password protection from pages you want indexed.
Action items:
- Review
/robots.txtfor unintended blocks - Check top 10 most important pages for unexpected noindex tags in GSC
- Confirm store is not password-protected
2. Broken Links and 404 Errors
This is the most impactful technical issue on most Shopify stores, and the most commonly overlooked.
Find your 404 errors
Check Google Search Console under Pages → Not found (404) for a list of URLs Google has attempted to crawl and received a 404.
For internal broken links (links in your content pointing to 404 URLs), run a dedicated scan — either with a tool like Screaming Frog or a Shopify scanning app that can reach content inside your store’s API.
Why broken links matter:
Each broken link wastes crawl budget, loses link equity, and degrades your store’s topical authority. For a store with ongoing product changes, broken links accumulate silently and compound over time.
Fix your 404s
For each 404 URL:
- Determine if you have a relevant live destination
- If yes: set up a 301 redirect to the destination
- If the broken link is in your own content: update the link directly
Action items:
- Export 404s from Google Search Console
- Run a broken link scan across products, pages, and blog posts
- Set up 301 redirects for all deleted product and collection URLs
- Update internal links pointing to broken destinations
- Set up monthly broken link monitoring
3. URL Structure
Clean, consistent URLs help both users and search engines understand your store’s structure.
Check for duplicate URL issues
Shopify can sometimes create multiple valid URLs for the same product (e.g., /products/jacket and /collections/mens/products/jacket). These should have canonical tags pointing to the preferred URL to avoid splitting link authority.
Shopify adds canonical tags by default for collection-scoped product URLs, but verify this is working correctly in your theme.
Keep URLs clean and descriptive
Product handles should be descriptive and keyword-relevant. /products/mens-waterproof-hiking-jacket is better than /products/product-123 or /products/jacket. Update handles for products with weak URLs — but always set up a redirect first.
Avoid special characters and parameters in indexable URLs
Faceted navigation (filters) often creates URLs with parameters like ?sort_by=price-ascending&color=blue. These should either be blocked from indexing (via robots.txt or canonical tags) or handled carefully to avoid indexing thousands of near-duplicate filtered pages.
Action items:
- Audit product handles for clarity and keyword relevance
- Verify collection-scoped product URLs have correct canonical tags
- Review how your theme handles faceted navigation URLs
- Check that filter parameters aren’t creating indexable duplicate content
4. Internal Linking
Internal links distribute authority across your store and help Google understand your site’s structure.
Map your authority flow
Your homepage has the most authority. That authority flows through internal links to collection pages, and from there to product pages. Check that your most important pages receive adequate internal links.
Common gaps:
- Product pages with no internal links from blog content
- Collection pages with no descriptions or links between related collections
- Homepage not linking to top-revenue collections prominently
Add links in blog content
Blog posts are the most flexible internal linking tool. Each post should link to 3–5 relevant pages in your store — specific products, collections, or related blog posts.
Fix broken internal links
Every broken internal link is a broken authority transfer. If a blog post links to a product that was deleted, the link equity is lost. Regular scanning catches these before they accumulate.
Action items:
- Audit internal link counts for your top 20 product pages
- Add collection descriptions with links to related collections and featured products
- Ensure your top blog posts link to relevant products and collections
- Scan and fix all broken internal links
5. Sitemap
Your sitemap tells Google what to crawl and index. Shopify generates one automatically, but it’s worth reviewing.
Locate and verify your sitemap
Your sitemap is at yourstore.com/sitemap.xml. Shopify generates a sitemap index that points to separate sitemaps for products, collections, pages, and blog posts.
Check for issues:
- Are your most important pages included?
- Are any 404 URLs or deleted pages still appearing in the sitemap?
- Is the sitemap submitted to Google Search Console?
Submit to Google Search Console
In GSC, go to Sitemaps and submit yourstore.com/sitemap.xml. Google will regularly fetch and process it, using it to discover and prioritize content.
Action items:
- Verify sitemap at
/sitemap.xml - Submit sitemap to Google Search Console if not already done
- Check that deleted pages aren’t appearing in the sitemap
6. Page Speed
Page speed is a confirmed Google ranking factor for mobile search. Shopify’s infrastructure is generally fast, but theme choices and app bloat can create issues.
Measure your current speed
Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to test your homepage and a key product page. Focus on the Core Web Vitals scores:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): How quickly the main content loads. Aim for under 2.5s.
- FID/INP (Interaction responsiveness): How quickly the page responds to interactions.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How much the layout shifts unexpectedly. Aim for under 0.1.
Common Shopify speed issues:
- Too many apps injecting JavaScript
- Large, unoptimized product images
- Web fonts loading render-blocking
- Unused CSS from theme features you don’t use
Quick wins without a developer:
- Compress product images before uploading (tools like Squoosh)
- Remove unused Shopify apps (they often inject code even when not visibly active)
- Enable lazy loading for images in your theme settings if available
- Use Shopify’s built-in image optimization (serve images as WebP)
Action items:
- Test homepage and product page in PageSpeed Insights
- Identify and remove any unused apps
- Audit product images for optimization opportunities
- Review Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console
7. Schema Markup
Schema markup (structured data) helps Google understand your content and can unlock enhanced search result appearances (rich snippets).
Product schema
Shopify’s modern themes include product schema automatically. Verify it’s working correctly by testing a product page in Google’s Rich Results Test. Product schema should include:
- Product name
- Description
- Price
- Availability
- Images
- Reviews (if you have a reviews app)
Breadcrumb schema
Breadcrumbs in search results help users understand where a page sits in your store’s hierarchy and can improve click-through rates. Many Shopify themes include breadcrumb schema automatically.
FAQ schema
For blog posts and FAQ pages, adding FAQ schema can trigger expanded search results that take up more SERP real estate. This is typically implemented through theme customization or apps.
Action items:
- Test a product page in Google’s Rich Results Test
- Verify breadcrumb schema on collection and product pages
- Consider adding FAQ schema to key blog posts and informational pages
8. Mobile Experience
Google uses mobile-first indexing — it evaluates your mobile site for ranking purposes, not your desktop site.
Check mobile usability
In Google Search Console, look at the Mobile Usability report for any issues (text too small, clickable elements too close together, content wider than screen).
Test key pages on mobile
Manually browse your store on a phone. Check:
- Is the navigation easy to use?
- Do product images load quickly?
- Is the checkout flow mobile-friendly?
- Are CTAs and buttons easy to tap?
Action items:
- Review Mobile Usability report in GSC
- Manually test homepage, collection pages, product pages, and checkout on mobile
- Fix any mobile usability issues flagged in GSC
9. Canonical Tags
Canonical tags tell Google which version of a URL is the “official” one when multiple URLs have similar or identical content.
Where Shopify needs canonical tags:
- Product pages accessible through collection URLs (handled by Shopify automatically)
- Paginated collection pages (
/collections/all?page=2) - Filter combinations (
/collections/all?sort=price-asc)
Verify canonical implementation
Use the URL Inspection tool in GSC to check what canonical URL Google has selected for your important pages. If it doesn’t match what you’d expect, investigate.
Action items:
- Verify canonical tags on product pages using GSC URL Inspection
- Check that filter/sort URLs don’t create unintended indexable duplicate content
Your Quarterly Technical SEO Audit Routine
Technical SEO isn’t a one-time fix — it requires ongoing maintenance. Here’s a practical cadence:
Monthly:
- Scan for new broken links and fix them
- Check GSC for new 404 errors
Quarterly:
- Run the full checklist above
- Review crawl stats in GSC for trends
- Check PageSpeed scores on key pages
- Review redirect list for chains
After major changes (product deletions, theme migrations, restructuring):
- Run an immediate broken link scan
- Set up redirects before making deletions live
- Verify key pages are still crawlable and indexed after changes
Technical SEO is the foundation everything else is built on. A store with strong technical health gets more value from its content, its links, and its marketing than one with ongoing crawl and link issues.
Relink handles the broken links and 404 errors part of this checklist automatically — scanning your store daily and surfacing fixes as they appear. Install free on Shopify.