Shopify · Free website check
Why your Shopify store isn’t showing on Google
Most of the time it’s one setting, or just a wait. The free check reads your store for common search and sharing problems and shows what it finds, with the Shopify steps to fix it.
Check these first, most likely first
Start at the top. Each one says where to find the setting in Shopify.
The store is still password protected
While the store is in private mode, every page is hidden from visitors and from search engines, so nothing can be listed.
- If your store still shows a password page, go to Online Store > Preferences.
- Turn off password protection and Save. Search engines can’t list a locked store.
robots.txt tells search engines to stay out
Shopify writes this file for you, so it is rare, but a theme edit can add a rule that shuts every search engine out. Search engines that follow it will not read your pages, so they may not appear.
- Shopify writes robots.txt for you. Changes are made in the theme file robots.txt.liquid.
- Remove the rule that blocks search engines, then save the theme.
Shopify help: editing robots.txt.liquid
The free check reads your robots.txt.
One page or product is hidden
If only some pages are missing, a noindex tag on those pages is the usual reason. Your theme or an SEO app can add it.
- If the page should appear in search: a page in your Shopify sitemap is usually hidden by your theme or an SEO app. Turn the hiding off for that page in the app, or ask whoever edits your theme to remove its noindex tag.
- If it should stay out of search, such as a thank-you page: hide it the way Shopify’s help page shows instead (a seo.hidden setting on that page). That also takes it out of your sitemap.
Shopify help: hiding a page from search engines
The free check reads the search settings of up to 10 other pages.
Google doesn’t know the store exists yet
Google finds a site faster when it has been told where its sitemap is.
- Shopify publishes /sitemap.xml for you.
- Add your store to Google Search Console and submit sitemap.xml under Sitemaps.
Shopify help: finding and submitting your sitemap
The free check looks for your sitemap and tells you if it is missing or points elsewhere.
See whether Google has listed your store yet
- Search Google for
site:yourdomain.com, using your own address. Pages in the results are on Google. No results does not prove the site is absent: this search can omit indexed pages. Use URL Inspection below to check a specific page. - To check one page, open Google Search Console (free), paste the page’s address into the box at the top and read the answer: “URL is on Google” or “URL is not on Google”. Open “Page indexing” to see why.
- If the page isn’t on Google and nothing is blocking it, press “Request indexing”. Google says this usually takes a day or so, can take much longer, and isn’t guaranteed.
A new store can take a while: Google says anywhere from a day or two to a few weeks, and suggests allowing at least a week after you submit a sitemap.
Google: check a page with URL Inspection Google: why a page might be missing from search
What the free check looks at
- Whether the page asks search engines not to list it (a noindex tag or header).
- Whether robots.txt shuts search engines out.
- Whether the store publishes a sitemap, and whether it points at your own pages.
- Whether the page names another address as its main one.
- Whether the www and non-www addresses both work.
- The search settings of up to 10 other pages.
It only reads public pages. It never signs in, and nothing on your store changes. It can’t see Google’s own list, which is why the steps above matter. How the check works.
A noindex switch that someone turns back on is an easy way for a site to drop out quietly. DeployPost Watch runs this check on your page every day and emails you when something looks different. See DeployPost Watch.
More for Shopify
Does a shared link show the wrong picture? Shopify: link preview picture.