Learn how Google and AI read your store
55 guides in 12 clusters: one per check, plus honest comparisons. Start with the pillar, go deeper where it hurts. Written from what the checker actually enforces, not generic SEO advice, and each ends with the free tool that detects the problem on your own store.
Feed rejections run the Feed rejections check
Pillar guideGoogle Merchant Center requirements for Shopify, in plain wordsWhat Google Merchant Center actually requires of Shopify products, the five mistakes behind most disapprovals, and how to audit your catalogue in an afternoon.Deep diveHow to write Google Shopping titles that get approvedHow to write Google Shopping titles that get approved and clicked: brand-first word order, the 150-character limit, and the formatting traps to avoid.Deep diveProduct descriptions that survive Google ShoppingWhat Google wants in a product description, why thin supplier copy gets rejected or ignored, and a rewrite pattern with examples.Deep diveShipwork vs Feed Doctor: which check fits your store?Shipwork vs Feed Doctor compared honestly: install vs no-install, what each sees, what each costs, and which store each fits.Deep diveShipwork vs Shopify Feed Rescue: tool or human?Shipwork vs Shopify Feed Rescue: free instant checks against a $97 human audit and $497 fix sprint. Which one your disapproval problem actually needs.Deep diveDMARC for online stores: the spoofed order email problemWhy your store needs DMARC, what the 2026 study found, and how to add SPF, DKIM and DMARC and move from monitoring to enforcement.Deep diveImage SEO for stores: what the 2026 data foundWhat the 2026 study found on image weight, legacy formats and missing alt text, plus how to fix image SEO on Shopify and WooCommerce.Deep diveGoogle Merchant Center not syncing with Shopify: a fix orderTroubleshoot Shopify Google & YouTube product sync delays, missing products, connection problems, and product-level errors in Merchant Center.
Landing pages run the Landing pages check
Pillar guideWhat Google requires of your product landing pagesWhy Google disapproves products whose pages load fine for you: 500s, blocks, redirects, soft 404s and price mismatches, and how to test like a crawler.Deep divePrice mismatch: when the feed price and the page price disagreeWhy price and availability mismatches between your feed and landing page draw preemptive disapproval, and how to keep the two in sync.Deep diveThe URLs that quietly stop being productsRenamed handles, collection redirects and soft 404s silently disapprove products. How to audit every product URL on Shopify.Deep diveJavaScript SEO: what crawlers see before your scripts runJavaScript-rendered content is invisible to crawlers that never run scripts. What Googlebot and AI assistants see in raw HTML, and a free check.Deep diveSoft 404s: the healthy-looking failureA soft 404 is a removed product answering 200 with no content on it. Why Google treats it as thin, the Shopify causes, and a free check.
AI crawler access run the AI crawler access check
Pillar guideRobots.txt for AI crawlers: who you are actually blockingWhich AI crawlers your robots.txt blocks without you knowing, how longest-match rules actually work, and how to let search-time agents in on Shopify.Deep diveGPTBot versus ChatGPT-User: allow one, maybe block the otherGPTBot trains models, ChatGPT-User answers shoppers with links to you. What each AI agent does and how to set robots.txt per agent.Deep divellms.txt: the introduction your store hands to AIWhat llms.txt does, what to put in one for a Shopify store, and why it matters for AI shopping answers even before it is widely honoured.Deep diveAI crawler access on online stores: what 963 stores showedHow many audited stores block AI crawlers and publish llms.txt, by platform, and how to decide what to allow. Data from 963 stores.Deep diveAI crawler user agents: a practical list for robots.txtA practical list of major AI crawler tokens, what each is used for, and the robots.txt rules that control their access.Deep diveHow to block GPTBot without blocking every OpenAI crawlerBlock OpenAI GPTBot with robots.txt, Cloudflare or Nginx, understand the limits of each method, and decide whether to keep search bots allowed.Deep diveHow to get your business cited by ChatGPT SearchHow ChatGPT Search discovers and cites web pages, which crawler setting matters, and how to make useful pages easy to crawl and verify.
Structured data run the Structured data check
Pillar guideProduct schema on Shopify: what the theme gives you and what it hidesWhat your Shopify theme emits, the five fields it does not, ProductGroup variants, and how to validate markup the way a crawler reads it.Deep diveThe two markup fields that unlock shipping and returns in listingsHow hasMerchantReturnPolicy and shippingDetails unlock shipping and return info in listings: with JSON-LD examples and the account-level shortcut.Deep diveMarking up variants: the ProductGroup patternHow to mark up multi-variant products with ProductGroup and hasVariant, why flat Product blocks under-represent catalogues, and the ratings trap.Deep diveProduct schema example: copyable JSON-LD for a real product pageCopyable Product JSON-LD examples for a priced product, variants, shipping and return details, plus what to do when a product has no price.
Sitemaps run the Sitemaps check
Pillar guideShopify sitemaps and the “could not fetch” errorWhy Search Console says it could not fetch a sitemap that loads fine for you, what “success with 0 URLs” means, and the fix order that resolves most cases.Deep diveCrawl budget: why some products never get indexedHow crawl budget works on Shopify stores, how dead sitemap URLs waste it, and the audit that gets product pages indexed faster.Deep diverobots.txt for Shopify: the lines that matterrobots.txt on Shopify explained: what to disallow, what must stay crawlable, and the mistakes that block products from Google. Check yours free.Deep diveHreflang sitemap example: two language pages, checked end to endA worked hreflang sitemap example for two language versions, plus a worksheet to plan, publish and verify every reciprocal URL entry.
Indexation run the Indexation check
Deep diveHow to find the noindex or block that keeps pages out of GoogleHow to check any page for a noindex tag, an X-Robots-Tag header or a robots.txt block: the four silent causes of pages missing from Google, and a free check.Deep diveHow to find the pages no link reachesOrphan pages: pages in your sitemap no link reaches. Why they rank worse, the free way to find them without a full crawl, and how to fix them.Deep diveRedirect chains: the redirects behind your redirectsRedirect chains slow crawls, dilute signals and delay updates. What counts as a chain, why they accumulate, and a free check that follows every hop.Deep diveHow to check the outbound links on a websiteA practical guide to finding your site’s external links, reviewing destinations, and deciding what to update or remove. Includes a bounded sample check.Deep diveBroken internal links: dead ends on your own siteBroken internal links send visitors and crawlers to dead ends. Why they happen on stores, what they cost, and a free check that follows your links like a crawler.Deep diveContent freshness: what staleness signals Google actually readsHow content staleness shows up in your sitemap and pages, when refreshing actually helps rankings, and a free check for the quiet rot.Deep diveShould a canonical point to itself? Self, duplicate and cross-domain canonicalsCanonical tags decide which of your duplicate URLs survives. When self-canonical is right, when cross-domain is wrong, and a free check that reads yours.Deep diveDuplicate content: what it is, what it costs, what it does notFind duplicate titles and descriptions, check whether the pages truly repeat content, and choose unique metadata, canonicals or a relevant consolidation.Deep diveRedirect mapping template: plan and QA a site migrationBuild a migration redirect map with source and destination URLs, reasons, expected statuses and observed results, then review exceptions before launch.Deep diveNginx 301 redirect examples for pages and URL sectionsCopy Nginx 301 redirect examples for one path or a moved section, decide how to handle query strings, then validate and test safely.Deep diveX-Robots-Tag noindex: find it, change it and verify the responseFind an X-Robots-Tag noindex response header with curl, add or remove it in Nginx safely, and verify robots access and cached responses.
Core Web Vitals run the Core Web Vitals check
Keywords run the Keywords check
Trust pages run the Trust pages check
Stock & prices run the Stock & prices check
Deep diveAvailability mismatch: in stock in the feed, sold out on the pageProducts marked in stock in your feed but sold out on the page (or the reverse) get disapproved or lose placement. How it happens, and a free check.Deep diveOut-of-stock products and SEO: keep, mark or removeNearly half of audited stores had a fully out-of-stock product. How to handle out-of-stock and discontinued pages: keep, mark, redirect, 404 or 410.
Full audit run the Full audit check
Deep diveThe free website audit checklist, checked automaticallyA free website audit that runs in seconds: 30+ checks covering crawlability, indexation, schema, links, speed signals and trust pages: the full checklist, no signup.Deep diveShipwork vs Ahrefs Site Audit: which one do you need?Shipwork vs Ahrefs compared: free no-signup audit against the industry SEO suite. When each wins, what each sees, and which store each fits.Deep diveShipwork vs Semrush Site Audit: which job is yours?Shipwork vs Semrush compared honestly: instant free audit against the all-in-one marketing suite. Scope, cost and which job each fits.Deep diveShipwork vs Screaming Frog: install or just paste?Shipwork vs Screaming Frog compared: free browser audit against the desktop crawler SEO standard. Install vs URL-paste, and which job each fits.Deep diveHow to compare Shipwork and SEOptimer on your siteA practical checklist for running both free audits on one site and comparing evidence, limits, reports and the next fix.Deep diveShipwork vs ShopGrader: which free Shopify audit?Shipwork vs ShopGrader: two free Shopify audits, no login. 10-category scores versus feed, crawler and AI checks: which store each fits.Deep diveShopify vs WooCommerce SEO: the data beside the defaultsThe same 20-page audit on Shopify and WooCommerce stores, check by check: what the platform decides and what the merchant still controls.Deep diveThe ecommerce SEO checklist for 2026, ranked by how often stores failA checklist of the 17 checks in the 2026 study, ordered by how often the 963 audited stores failed, each with the free tool that finds it.Deep diveSEO audit API: first request, JSON findings, and next stepsUse an SEO audit API with curl or JavaScript, read JSON findings, handle request errors and preview limits, and decide when you need a deeper crawl.
Traffic & links run the Traffic & links check
Deep diveCheck your Google Search traffic for freeCheck your own Google Search clicks, impressions, queries and landing pages with read-only Search Console access. Search traffic is not total website traffic.Deep diveHow to check the external links pointing to your siteFind sites linking to you with Search Console and a public backlink checker. Export incoming links, verify sources, and understand missing results.
Prefer error-by-error? Every Merchant Center error, explained. Ready to test? Page Doctor · Site audit · Compare · Deep crawl · Rendered check · Image audit · Rich results · Sitemap lastmod · Hreflang sitemap · Feed check · Feed file check · Product pages · AI crawlers · Structured data · Sitemap · Indexing · Canonicals · Orphan pages · Link graph · Anchor text · Keyword ideas · SERP preview · Index signals · Pagination · Internal search · URL parameters · Content quality · Image weight · Accessibility · Cannibalization · Core Web Vitals · Delivery · Outbound links · Log analyser · On-page check · llms.txt · AI access report · llms.txt builder · Redirect plan · Sitemap diff · Robots simulator · Can Googlebot? · Migration check · Your trend · Trust pages · Security headers · TLS certificate · Domain & email safety · Email security · DNS · Availability · Prices · Schema coverage · Social preview · Schema vs page · Images · Hreflang · Hreflang builder · Meta tag builder · Sitemap generator · Bulk URL status · Redirect builder · Error decoder · Health score · Keyword gap · Title fixer · Robots builder · Schema builder · Redirects · Duplicates · Soft 404s · JavaScript · Broken links · Freshness · Robots.txt · Feed finder · Striking distance · Search opportunities · Content gap · Page consolidation · Internal link plan · Fix priorities · Traffic at risk.