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SEO Shopify: My store is not indexing, what should I do?

If you've ever tried to search for your Shopify store on Google and couldn't find anything, you're not alone. Many Shopify stores struggle to get indexed by Google, which can be frustrating when trying to market your business online.

There are a number of reasons why your Shopify store might not be indexing. The most common reason is that your store is new and Google hasn't had a chance to crawl it yet. If you just launched your store, give it some time and check its status regularly.

It is also possible that your site is not indexed because it is not suitable for search engines, this is the whole problem of Shopify SEO , it is a discipline in its own right. This can be due to many reasons that we will see together in this article.

First we will see how to make sure that your store is correctly configured, that your pages are well crawled by Google, and how to use the Search Console , by submitting your sitemap to Google, we will also check that your Robots.txt file does not contain no mistakes, and finally we'll talk about keyword issues and content on your pages.

Summary

Shopify SEO: make sure your store is set up correctly - check basics like title, description and keywords and GSC to avoid Shopify indexing issues

One of the most common reasons for a store not being indexed by Google is that it was not set up correctly. This issue can be easily fixed by checking your store's basic SEO settings and making sure they are all filled in correctly.

To do this, go to your Shopify administration and click on Online store; preferences. Here you'll find the fields for your store's title, description, and keywords. Make sure they're all filled out correctly and include keywords that are relevant to your business.

If you've made any changes to these fields, be sure to save them and then resubmit your sitemap to Google (we'll get to that later).

Check your pages to see if they are properly crawled by Google

Another common reason for a store not being indexed is that the pages are not crawled properly by Google. To check if this is the case, go to Google and search for site:votresite.fr .

If you find the URLs of your Shopify store there, then Google detects your website, otherwise, you will need to call on a Shopify SEO Agency to audit your indexing situation.

Check that your Search Console is connected to your Shopify store

If you're not sure if your store is indexed by Google, the best way to find out is to check your Search Console.

Search Console is a free tool from Google that lets you see how your website is doing in search results. It also allows you to submit your sitemap, which we'll talk about later.

How to create your Search Console?

To check if you have a Search Console, go to the Google Search Console site, then log in with the Google account that is linked to your Google Analytics and the Google tools you use. If your property isn't showing, chances are you don't have a Search Console, so you'll need to create one.

We advise you to validate your Search Console property via DNS, rather than by a line of code in the <head> of your website, this way, GSC errors are less frequent, and your indexing results are not subject to fluctuations of change of theme, design, and many others...

How to check if your Shopify store is indexed?

To check if your store is indexed, log in to your Search Console account and select your website. Then click on the Coverage tab. There you will see a list of all the pages on your website that have been crawled by Google.

If no page is listed, chances are your store is not indexed. You then have two options, wait for Google to index your site little by little, or force the indexing of the most important pages so as to distribute the SEO juice over your entire website.

How to connect your sitemap to the Google Search Console?

The first step is to sign in to your Google Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools) account.

Once you are logged in, click on the "Sitemaps" tab, then on the "Add/test a Sitemap" button.

In the pop-up window, enter the URL of your sitemap.xml file and click "Send". That's it ! Google will now start processing your sitemap and indexing your pages.

If you want to track your progress, you can periodically return to the "Sitemaps" tab to check the status of your sitemap. You can also use Google Search Console to submit individual URLs for indexing, which can be useful if you've added new pages or made changes to existing pages.

Just enter the URL in the "URL Inspector" tool and click on "Request Indexing". Google will then crawl the page and add it to its index.

Google having limited crawling capabilities, will crawl your site every 1-2 weeks, depending on the number of changes made to the site, and if Google considers your site important to its users.

SEO Professionals

Check your robots.txt file for errors to avoid Shopify indexing issues?

What is the Robots.txt file?

The robots.txt file is a text file that is used to tell web robots (also called spiders or crawlers) how to crawl and index a website.

The robots.txt file contains a set of rules that tell robots which pages they can visit and which they cannot. The robots.txt file is located in the root directory of a website, and its name is case sensitive.

The robots.txt file must be well-formed, otherwise it will be ignored by robots. Also, the robots.txt file must be placed on a server accessible by the robots.

If you want to prevent all robots from accessing your website, you can use the following code in your robots.txt file: User-agent: * Disallow: / this code tells all robots not to crawl the pages of the website. However, it is important to note that this code does not guarantee that your website will not be crawled or indexed by robots, but it can be a clue as to any Shopify indexing problems you may have.

Shopify SEO: How to modify the robots.txt of a Shopify store?

Edit robots.txt with FTP access

To edit your robots.txt file, you must have FTP access to your server. Once you are connected to your server, navigate to the root directory of your website. In most cases, this is the "public_html" or "www" folder. In this folder you should see a file called "robots.txt". If this file does not exist, you can create it using a text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit. Once you have the robots.txt file open, you can add instructions by adding one instruction per line. Each statement must include the action (allow or deny) and the path that should be affected. For example :

User agent: *

Disallow: /admin

Disallow: /cart

Disallow: /orders

Disallow: /checkouts/

Disallow: /checkout

Disallow: /58098253963/checkouts

Disallow: /58098253963/orders

Disallow: /carts

Disallow: /account

The first statement in this example applies to all robots (*). It tells robots not to crawl pages in the "admin" folder. The second instruction tells the robot not to explore the "/cart" page or basket in French. You can add as many instructions as needed to properly restrict crawler access to your website. Once you are done editing the robots.txt file, save your changes and upload it to your server. Your new instructions will take effect immediately.

Edit the robots.txt with the Shopify theme customizer

  1. From your Shopify admin, click Settings > Apps & Sales Channels.
  2. On the Apps and sales channels page, click online store.
  3. Click Open Sales Channel.
  4. Click Themes.
  5. Click Actions, then Edit Code.
  6. Click Add New Template, then select bots.
  7. Click Create template.
  8. Make the desired changes to the default template.
  9. Save changes to the robots.txt.liquid file in your published theme.

You can also hire Shopify experts who can guide you through creating and editing a robots.txt.

See the project See the project

An SEO keyword problem like Shopify indexing problem?

What is an SEO keyword?

Keywords are the basis of SEO. These are the words and phrases that people use to search for information on the Internet. When you optimize your website for a particular keyword, you are trying to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for that keyword.

One of the most common problems with indexing is the use of the following keywords:

  1. Click here
  2. More information on…
  3. Continue
  4. Learn more
  5. etc

All of these words are "stop words" Stop words are the most common words in a language, and they are usually ignored by search engines when indexing websites. This is because stopwords don't really add value to a phrase, and they can actually make it harder for search engines to understand the content of a page.

If you want your website to be indexed properly, you should avoid using stop words in your titles and descriptions. Instead, focus on using keywords that are more likely to be associated with your product or service and keywords that will be searched by Google users.

To check if keywords are searched, you can use SEMRUSH or other keyword tracking tools.

How to follow your SEO keywords?

A simple way to follow the progress of your SEO keywords is to use the Search Console, in fact the GSC provides in the performance tab a sorting of queries that bring you the most traffic according to your web pages. It's a good way, but limited.

The best way to track your queries is to use a position tracker like SEMRUSH which produces accurate data, automatically, without you having to use Excel tables or Google Sheets.

How to choose your keywords?

To choose your keywords, we advise you to stick to your core business. Start by producing a list of 50 relevant keywords, which are searched on Google. Then, take the 20 that stand out the most (impressions, clicks, searches) and rank them according to their importance.

You will then have a clear overview of the keywords that it makes you follow, and favor in your web referencing strategy.

How to gain positions on your SEO keywords?

In our opinion, gaining position on Google is based on two fundamental things, namely the Authority Score, as well as the SEO markup of your Shopify store pages.

What is Authority Score?

Authority score is a metric used by Google to determine the trustworthiness of a website. It's based on a number of factors, including domain age, backlinks, and traffic. A higher authority score indicates that a website is more likely to rank well in search engines.

To improve your authority score, you can focus on the following:

  1. Publish high quality content on your website.
  2. Get backlinks from quality websites and netlinking
  3. Increase traffic to your website.
  4. Make sure your site is well designed and easy to navigate.
  5. etc

What is SEO markup?

SEO markup involves adding tags to your website content to improve its visibility in search engines. Tags are keywords or phrases that describe the content of a page. They help search engines understand the content of the page and index it correctly.

Adding tags to your content can be done manually through the theme customizer on Shopify, or through Shopify plugins.

The markup of a web page is used to prioritize the content it has, and thus facilitate the indexing work of Google.

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