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Shopify handles a reasonable amount of SEO by default and constrains a few things you cannot change. Knowing which is which saves effort spent on problems that are not yours to fix.

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What Shopify does by default

  • Generates sitemap.xml automatically, including products, collections, pages, and blog posts
  • Sets canonical tags on product and collection pages
  • Produces a robots.txt (editable via robots.txt.liquid on supported plans)
  • Serves over HTTPS with a CDN
  • Adds basic product structured data on most themes — quality varies significantly by theme

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What Shopify constrains

These are fixed by the platform and not worth fighting:
  • URL structure. Products live under /products/, collections under /collections/. The prefixes cannot be removed.
  • Duplicate product URLs. The same product is reachable at /products/x and /collections/y/products/x. Shopify canonicalises to the former.
  • Limited server-side control. No access to server config, so redirects and headers are handled through Shopify’s own tooling.

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Where the real work is

In practice, most Shopify SEO gains come from a short list:

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What Ryze does on a Shopify store

Once your store is connected, Ryze audits it, then ships fixes with approval:
  • Title and meta description rewrites
  • Schema markup implementation and repair
  • Catalogue feed optimization — title rewrites, GTIN assignment, category corrections, image upscaling
  • Internal linking adjustments
  • Core Web Vitals and speed work — image compression, lazy-loading, JavaScript reduction
  • Duplicate URL resolution and broken pagination fixes
  • Programmatic pages and product descriptions built from real demand signals
No theme edits are required.

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Primary references