Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving organic traffic to your Shopify store. One of the most important yet often overlooked technical SEO elements is the robots.txt file. This file tells search engine bots which pages they can or cannot crawl on your website.
In this guide, we’ll explain:
✔ What robots.txt is and why it matters for SEO
✔ How to view and edit robots.txt in Shopify
✔ How to block search engines from indexing specific pages
✔ Best practices for optimizing robots.txt
Let’s dive in!
Step 1: What is robots.txt?
Robots.txt is a simple text file that sits in the root directory of your website (e.g., yourstore.com/robots.txt). It instructs search engine bots (like Googlebot) which pages they should or shouldn’t crawl.
Why is robots.txt important?
- Prevents search engines from indexing duplicate or irrelevant pages (e.g., admin, cart, checkout).
- Helps search engines focus on ranking your most important pages.
- Avoids wasting crawl budget on pages that don’t need SEO visibility.
Step 2: How to View Your Shopify robots.txt File
By default, Shopify generates a basic robots.txt file. To check yours:
- Open a web browser.
- Type:
yourstore.com/robots.txt
(Replace yourstore.com with your actual domain.)
You’ll see something like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin
Disallow: /cart
Disallow: /checkout
Disallow: /orders
Sitemap: https://yourstore.com/sitemap.xml This tells all bots (User-agent: *) to avoid crawling private pages like /admin and /checkout.
Step 3: How to Edit robots.txt in Shopify
Shopify doesn’t allow direct editing of robots.txt unless you use a custom template. Here’s how to modify it:
Method 1: Using the Shopify Theme Editor
- Go to Online Store > Themes.
- Click Actions > Edit code.
- Under Templates, click Add a new template.
- Select robots.txt and click Create template.
- Edit the file (e.g., add
Allow: /blogto let bots crawl blog pages). - Click Save.
Method 2: Using an SEO App (Recommended for Beginners)
If manually editing code seems complex, use an SEO automation app (like SEO Manager) to:
✅ Auto-generate a proper robots.txt
✅ Add meta tags & alt text in bulk
✅ Optimize sitemaps & crawlability
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Step 4: Blocking Search Engines from Indexing Specific Pages
Sometimes, you may want to hide certain pages (e.g., test products, internal pages) from search engines.
Option 1: Using noindex Meta Tag
- Go to Online Store > Themes > Edit code.
- Open
theme.liquid. - Add this code inside the
<head>section for a specific product/page:
“`html
{% if product.handle == ‘product-handle’ %}
{% endif %}
*(Replace `product-handle` with the actual handle from the product URL.)*
### **Option 2: Disallowing in robots.txt**
Add this to your `robots.txt`:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /private-page/
“`
(Note: Disallow blocks crawling, but noindex ensures the page won’t appear in search results.)
Step 5: Best Practices for robots.txt Optimization
✔ Allow important pages (e.g., product pages, blogs).
✔ Block duplicate or sensitive pages (e.g., /search?q=, /account).
✔ Submit an XML sitemap in robots.txt for better crawling.
✔ Test your robots.txt using Google Search Console.
Final Thoughts
Optimizing your robots.txt file helps search engines crawl your Shopify store efficiently, improving rankings and avoiding indexing issues.
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Got questions? Drop them in the comments!
