E-commerce SEO · Technical

Technical SEO Built For Growing Online Stores

Thousands of products, filters and variants create problems most SEO checklists never mention. We find where search engines waste time on your store, fix what holds pages back and keep it that way as your catalog grows.

Crawl budget pointed at pages that make money
Platform-specific fixes for Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and headless
Faster pages that pass Core Web Vitals
Get Free AuditCommon Issues
Crawl report · yourstore.comExample auditWhere Googlebot spends its timeURLs crawled48,210Worth indexing6,940Low-value crawl71%Crawl requests by URL typeProducts · 12%Categories · 3%Filter URLs · 46%Sort & params · 18%Internal search · 7%Other · 14%Googlebot requests per dayFixes live
On this page01Crawl Waste02Index Health03Your Platform04Core Web Vitals05JavaScript06Sitemaps & Data07Migrations08Your Audit09FAQs
Chapter 01 · Crawl budget

Where Search Engines Waste Time On Your Store

Search engines only crawl so many URLs on your site each day. On most stores, the majority go to pages nobody will ever search for, while new products wait to be found.

Filter combinations

?colour=black&size=m&sort=new

Block crawl of low-value filters, keep the few with demand.

Sort and view options

?sort=price-asc&view=grid

Keep these out of crawl paths and links.

Internal search results

/search?q=blue+bag

Block from crawling and keep out of the index.

Tracking and session IDs

?utm_source=mail&sessionid=…

Canonical to the clean URL, never linked internally.

Duplicate product paths

/collections/bags/products/trek

Link to one canonical product URL everywhere.

URL variants

http, www, trailing slash, uppercase

One version, with every other variant redirected to it.

Chapter 02 · Index health

What Search Console Is Really Telling Your Store

Google Search Console’s page indexing report tells you why pages are not indexed. For stores, each status points to a specific, fixable problem.

Search Console statusWhat it usually means on a storeTypical fix
Crawled – currently not indexedThin or near-duplicate product and filter pages Google did not think worth keepingImprove or consolidate pages, cut low-value URLs
Discovered – currently not indexedGoogle knows the URL but has not crawled it, often a crawl budget or internal linking issueReduce crawl waste, link key pages better
Duplicate, Google chose different canonicalVariants, collection paths or parameters competing with the main pageConsistent canonicals and internal links
Soft 404Empty categories or sold-out pages that look like errorsShow alternatives or return a real 404 or 410
Blocked by robots.txtSometimes intended, sometimes important pages blocked by mistakeReview rules line by line
Page with redirectOld URLs still linked from menus, sitemaps or productsUpdate links and sitemaps to final URLs
Crawled – currently not indexed
What it usually means on a storeThin or near-duplicate product and filter pages Google did not think worth keeping
Typical fixImprove or consolidate pages, cut low-value URLs
Discovered – currently not indexed
What it usually means on a storeGoogle knows the URL but has not crawled it, often a crawl budget or internal linking issue
Typical fixReduce crawl waste, link key pages better
Duplicate, Google chose different canonical
What it usually means on a storeVariants, collection paths or parameters competing with the main page
Typical fixConsistent canonicals and internal links
Soft 404
What it usually means on a storeEmpty categories or sold-out pages that look like errors
Typical fixShow alternatives or return a real 404 or 410
Blocked by robots.txt
What it usually means on a storeSometimes intended, sometimes important pages blocked by mistake
Typical fixReview rules line by line
Page with redirect
What it usually means on a storeOld URLs still linked from menus, sitemaps or products
Typical fixUpdate links and sitemaps to final URLs
Chapter 03 · Platform-specific SEO

Every Platform Breaks SEO In Its Own Way

Generic checklists miss the problems your platform creates by default. Choose yours to see what we usually find and fix.

What we usually find
Fixed /products/ and /collections/ URL structure
Products also reachable through collection paths
Tag pages creating thin, duplicate collections
Apps adding heavy scripts to every page
How we fix it
Theme links point to the canonical /products/ URL
Custom robots.txt rules for tag and filter URLs
Collections planned around search demand
App audit and script clean-up for speed
What we usually find
Product tag and attribute archives indexed
Sorting and add-to-cart parameter URLs crawled
Plugin bloat and slow shared hosting
Duplicate titles across paginated archives
How we fix it
Thin archives noindexed or removed
Parameter URLs blocked and kept out of links
Plugin and hosting review with speed fixes
Clean SEO plugin settings and templates
What we usually find
Layered navigation generating endless URLs
Category paths in product URLs creating duplicates
Store views duplicating content across regions
Heavy front-end slowing every page
How we fix it
Layered navigation rules for crawl and indexing
Single product URL setting with canonicals
Hreflang and store view mapping
Front-end performance work with your developers
What we usually find
Faceted search parameters crawled freely
Default URL formats that are hard to change later
Sort and pagination duplicates
Theme scripts affecting Core Web Vitals
How we fix it
Facet rules and robots.txt updates
Planned URL structure with redirects
Canonical and pagination setup
Theme performance fixes
What we usually find
Content rendered only in the browser
Missing or late meta tags and canonicals
Error pages returning a 200 status
Internal links that are not real links
How we fix it
Server-side or static rendering for key pages
Meta, canonical and schema in the first HTML
Proper 404 and 301 status codes
Real, crawlable HTML links throughout
Chapter 04 · Core Web Vitals

Fast Stores Rank Better And Sell More

Google measures how quickly pages load, respond and settle for real visitors. Stores usually fail for the same few reasons, and most of them are fixable.

LCP
Largest Contentful Paint
Good: 2.5 s or less
Common causes on stores

Huge hero banners and product images, slow servers

What we do

Right-sized images, priority loading for the main image, caching

INP
Interaction to Next Paint
Good: 200 ms or less
Common causes on stores

Third-party apps, chat widgets and heavy filter scripts

What we do

Remove or delay non-essential scripts, lighter filters

CLS
Cumulative Layout Shift
Good: 0.1 or less
Common causes on stores

Late banners, review widgets and images without sizes

What we do

Reserved space for images, banners and widgets

Thresholds are Google’s, measured for real visitors at the 75th percentile. We fix the templates, so improvements apply to every product and category at once.

Chapter 05 · JavaScript and headless

If Crawlers Can’t See It, It Can’t Rank

Modern storefronts often build pages in the browser. Google can render JavaScript, but later and less reliably, and many AI crawlers do not run it at all. Products, prices and links should be in the first HTML response.

Rendering tests on product, category and search pages
Server-side or static rendering for key templates
Meta tags, canonicals and schema in the initial HTML
Real status codes for errors and redirects
Server-rendered HTMLWhat the crawler receives first<title><h1>Product linksPrice & stockCanonical tagStructured dataClient-side rendering onlyWhat the crawler receives first<div id="app"></div>Content appears only afterJavaScript runs, if at allServer-rendered HTMLWhat the crawler receives first<title> and <h1>Product linksPrice and stockCanonical tagStructured dataClient-side rendering onlyWhat the crawler receives first<div id="app"></div>Content appears only afterJavaScript runs, if at all
Chapter 06 · At catalog scale

Sitemaps, Structured Data And Internal Links That Scale

With thousands of products, small template mistakes repeat thousands of times. We set up systems that stay correct as products are added and removed.

Split XML sitemaps

Separate sitemaps for products, categories and content, so indexing problems are easy to spot.

Only clean URLs listed

Sitemaps contain canonical, indexable pages that return a 200 status. Nothing else.

Accurate last-modified dates

Updated only when content changes, so search engines know what to recrawl.

Structured data at scale

Product, offer and breadcrumb markup generated by templates and checked automatically.

Internal links by priority

Bestsellers and new launches linked from categories, guides and the homepage.

International stores

Hreflang, currencies and regional URLs set up so each market sees the right store.

Chapter 07 · Replatforming and migrations

Change Platforms Without Losing Your Rankings

Moving to a new platform or domain is the riskiest moment for a store’s organic revenue. A tested migration plan keeps the traffic you have already earned.

01

Plan and map

6 to 8 weeks before

Full crawl and benchmark of rankings and revenue

Every old URL mapped to its new home

Content, metadata and schema carried over

02

Test on staging

2 weeks before

Redirects, canonicals and templates tested

Tracking, feeds and sitemaps checked

Speed compared with the old site

03

Go live carefully

Launch day

Redirects live and spot-checked

New sitemaps submitted

Merchant Center feeds verified

04

Monitor and fix

First 90 days

Daily checks for errors and lost pages

Rankings and revenue compared weekly

Issues fixed before they cost sales

Chapter 08 · What you get

A Technical Audit Your Developers Can Actually Use

No 200-page PDF of warnings. Every issue comes with the affected URLs, the business impact and a clear fix, ranked so your team knows what to do first.

01

Full crawl and log review

How search engines really move through your store, from crawl data and server logs.

02

Prioritized issue list

Each issue ranked by revenue impact and effort, with example URLs.

03

Developer-ready tickets

Clear specs your developers or agency can build from directly.

04

Before-and-after tracking

Indexing, crawl and revenue measured as each fix goes live.

Chapter 09 · How we work

From Crawl Data To Fixes That Stick

We work alongside your developers or platform partner, so fixes are built properly and stay in place.

01
02
03
04
Week 1–2

Crawl & benchmark

Crawl, logs, Search Console and speed data collected.

Week 3

Prioritize

Issues ranked by revenue impact and effort.

Week 4–10

Fix with your team

Tickets, reviews and testing alongside your developers.

Ongoing

Monitor

Automated checks catch new issues after each release.

Free technical audit

Find Out What Is Holding Your Store Back

Share your store URL and platform. We will check crawl waste, indexing, speed and the platform issues we see most often.

You get a short, prioritized summary with the fixes that matter most, with no obligation.

15+Years in search
1,345+Projects delivered
97%Client retention

Get Your Free Technical Audit

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Questions, answered

Technical E-commerce SEO Questions, Answered

Straight answers to what store owners ask us most.

What is crawl budget, and does my store need to worry about it?

It is how many URLs search engines are willing to crawl on your site in a given period. Small stores rarely need to worry. Stores with thousands of products or filter combinations often do, because new and updated products wait longer to be crawled.

Do you need access to our platform or code?

Read access to Search Console, analytics and your platform admin is enough for the audit. For fixes, we either implement them directly or work with your developers, whichever suits you.

Will technical fixes break anything on the site?

Changes are tested on staging or in small batches first, and every redirect or rule change is documented so it can be reversed if needed.

How long until technical fixes show results?

Crawl and indexing changes often show within a few weeks. Ranking and revenue improvements usually follow over two to four months, depending on the size of the catalog.

Can you help with a platform migration?

Yes. We plan URL mapping, redirects, staging tests and post-launch monitoring, and we prefer to be involved from the planning stage rather than after launch.

Do you work with headless storefronts?

Yes. We check how pages render for search engines and AI crawlers, and work with your developers on server-side rendering, metadata and status codes.

How often should a technical audit be done?

A full audit once a year, or before any major change, plus automated monitoring in between so new issues are caught after each release.