6 Common Shopify SEO Issues and How to Fix Them
Shopify is great for structure and ease-of-use, but struggles with automatically fixing the most common SEO issues. Thankfully, there are many automated tools and simple practices that can improve your store's SEO.
Updated December 9, 2024.
Shopify is a great eCommerce platform for merchants. It offers unparalleled structure that's great for usability but also comes with some unique Shopify SEO problems.
For example, Shopify automatically generates duplicate URLs for product pages by adding "/collections" to some URLs. While this is convenient for navigation, this duplication can dilute link equity and confuse search engines. Additionally, Shopify doesn’t allow full access to its backend, limiting how much you can edit technical elements and causing issues like slower site speed or thin content pages, which can hurt your rankings.
Here are the most common SEO issues on Shopify and what you can do to fix them.
» Boost your store's SEO with Shopify automation
1. Duplicate Content
Shopify automatically generates multiple URLs for the same product or collection. For example, you can get the same content for a product page and for the product within every collection where it appears.
For example:
- /collections/collection-name/products/product-name
- /collections/collection-name#2/products/product-name
Duplicate content confuses search engines and can cause issues with indexing, resulting in diluted ‘link equity’ and lower rankings. Over time, it can negatively impact organic traffic and user experience, as customers may encounter multiple URLs for the same product in search results.
» Need to duplicate products? Here's how to duplicate products on Shopify
How to Prevent Duplicate Content
To fix this, use canonical tags to tell search engines which version of a page to prioritize. Shopify’s built-in canonical tags help to some extent, but you can use an app like Yoast SEO to gain more day-to-day control. Additionally, rewrite product descriptions for each item to ensure uniqueness.
» Did you know? You can add variants to an existing Shopify product
2. Slow Page Speed
Some clunky Shopify themes like Debutify are loaded with unnecessary JavaScript or oversized images that can drastically slow page load times. While they can be optimized, they often include features many store owners don't use but still unknowingly load in the background.
Additionally, apps that inject inline scripts (like pop-ups or reviews) without optimizing code often bloat page size and slow load speed.
Page speed is a direct ranking factor for Google. A slow page increases bounce rates, reduces customer experience, and hurts Core Web Vitals scores, leading to lower search visibility and conversions. In the long run, slow sites lose customer trust and revenue.
» See our complete guide to Shopify image sizes
How to Fix Slow Page Speed
- Compress images with apps like All-In-One Image Master and be sure to remove unused apps and scripts
- Use Shopify’s theme analyzer to identify heavy elements in your theme, and consider switching to lightweight themes like Dawn
- Implement lazy loading for images and minify JavaScript
- Conduct regular site speed audits using Google PageSpeed Insights and Shopify’s built-in speed report
- Optimize images before uploading them, and test new apps for their performance impact before installation
» Reduce image sizes while improving image quality
Boost Your Store's Loading Speed
All-In-One Image Master boosts the page load speed and SEO efforts of your eCommerce store by optimizing your product images.
Generate automatic alt text
Set preferred image quality
Bulk edit images
3. Thin Content Pages
Shopify stores often suffer from thin content when store owners rely on generic product descriptions, lack category-level copy, or skip content on blog pages.
Thin content leads to poor rankings as it fails to provide value or satisfy search intent. This results in low organic traffic and poor user engagement as visitors don’t find the detailed information they need to make purchase decisions.
» Broaden your content with our guide to blogging on Shopify
How to Fix Thin Content
Create in-depth, unique descriptions for every product and category. Apps like Product Descriptions by AMP or Descrii Description Generator can automate product descriptions for your Shopify store.
To get varied content, you can also gather and display customer reviews, while on blog pages you can focus on creating detailed guides, tutorials, or reviews related to your products.
» Here are the best SEO apps for Shopify in 2025
4. Missing Meta Titles and Descriptions
Shopify doesn’t auto-fill meta tags or alt text with valuable information, and many store owners skip this step, leaving pages with default or missing meta titles and descriptions. This oversight is common for stores with large product catalogs.
Without optimized meta tags, pages struggle to rank well or attract clicks. Low click-through rates (CTR) in search results further can harm your rankings because users may not understand the value of your products if the metadata is unclear or missing.
How to Fix Missing Meta Titles and Descriptions
Use Shopify’s built-in SEO editor or apps like Plug In SEO to quickly generate and optimize meta titles and descriptions for all products. Incorporate target keywords and compelling CTAs in your metadata.
» Here's how to add meta descriptions to Shopify collections
5. Broken Links
Broken links happen when products are removed, URLs are changed without redirects, or apps are uninstalled improperly. Shopify’s automatic handling of 404 errors is limited, leaving many broken links unresolved.
Broken links harm user experience, leading to higher bounce rates and lower dwell times. From an SEO perspective, they waste crawl budget and can negatively impact rankings, as search engines view them as a sign of poor site maintenance.
How to Fix Broken Links
Set up 301 redirects for any removed or updated pages using Shopify’s URL redirect tool. Use apps like SEOAnt ‑ 404 Link Redirect to identify and fix broken links automatically, or you can fix 404 errors yourself through the Google Search Console.
6. Lack of Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Schema markup is a set of tags that you add to your website's HTML code to help search engines better understand your content. This markup provides structured data about your website's content, such as articles, products, reviews, and events.
Rich snippets are enhanced search results that display additional information directly in the search results page:
- Product information: Price, reviews, availability, and images.
- Article information: Author, publication date, and featured image.
- Recipe information: Ingredients, cooking time, and serving size.
- Event information: Date, time, location, and ticket information.
- Review information: Rating, review text, and reviewer name.
Without schema markup, your products are less likely to appear in rich results, reducing visibility and click-through rates. In the long run, this can lead to less organic traffic compared to competitors who use structured data.
Shopify doesn’t include advanced schema markup for rich snippets by default. Store owners often overlook this feature, missing opportunities to enhance their search results with additional information.
How to Fix Missing Schema Markup
- Install apps like JSON-LD for SEO to implement structured data for your products
- Ensure all key product details like price, availability, and reviews are included in the markup
- Use Google’s Rich Results Test to check for missing schema on your pages
- Regularly update your markup as product details change to keep it accurate
Generate Structured Data for Practice
Simple Sample Data can help you understand the value and intricacies of populating rich snippets with structured data through a development store.
Automate Your Store for Better SEO
Google is focusing heavily on user experience and AI-enabled search results these days, which could lead to decreased click-through rates for generic search terms. This is why leveraging features like Core Web Vitals and focusing on creating content for search intent matching will continue to play a bigger role.
To adapt, you should prioritize fast-loading pages, mobile responsiveness, and creating content that aligns with user search intent. Investing in structured data (schema markup) and leveraging Google Shopping (if you qualify) will also help you appear in rich results, driving higher click-through rates.
» Don't struggle through the difficulties of SEO improvement: Automate Shopify SEO strategies with tools like All-In-One Image Master and Out-of-Stock Police
