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Managing your Shopify store's SEO effectively is crucial for online visibility and traffic. If you use tags on your products, you’ll want to read on.
One often overlooked aspect is the role of 'noindex' tags in optimising your store's tag collections. Why? Because Shopify has a habit of creating collections for each new tag you create on your site. Let’s say you’re a brand that sells body products. You may have a collection called ‘Body Wash’ but also a product tag called ‘Body Wash’.
Guess what that means? You now have two collections called Body Wash - one you created and one automatically created by the tag. As you may be aware, duplicate pages are bad for SEO (e.g. competing against each other, duplicate content). To make it even worse, editing a ‘tag’ collection is a real pain in the neck.
To solve this, you’ll want to add a ‘noindex’ to the tag pages - meaning that Google won’t list those pages. Applying 'noindex' directives can enhance your SEO by preventing search engines from indexing pages that might dilute your SEO efforts.
Key Summary
How to Noindex Tags: Essential for controlling search engine access to tag collections.
Benefits: Improved site relevancy and SEO, reduced duplicate content issues and gain control over the content of all your important collections.
Implementation: Follow a few simple steps within Shopify's admin panel (below).
Understanding Noindex Tags
Noindex tags are directives you can use to tell search engines not to include specific pages in their indexes, meaning they won’t appear in the search results. This is crucial for pages that might not offer unique content or add value to users, such as tag collections in Shopify.
Why Noindex Shopify Tag Collections
Tag collections in Shopify generate multiple pages with duplicate content, which can harm your SEO by splitting page authority and causing content redundancy, not to mention a less-than-ideal user journey. Noindexing these pages ensures that search engines only index content that you want to be indexed.
Step-by-Step Guide to Noindex Tag Collections in Shopify
From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
Find the theme you want to edit, click the … button to open the actions menu, and then click Edit code.
Click the theme.liquid layout file.
Paste the following in the ‘<head>’ section to exclude tag collections.
N.B. There are two options to do so. Which one you use will be dependent on your setup. To start, use option 1; it will be the appropriate solution for the majority of Shopify stores. If you run into trouble with option 1, then implement option 2.
Option 1 - {% if template contains 'collection' and current_tags %} <meta name="robots" content="noindex" /> {% endif %}
Option 2 - {% if title contains ‘tagged’ %} <meta name="robots" content="noindex" /> {% endif %}
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Overusing Noindex: Do not noindex pages that can generate valuable traffic. WARNING - do not noindex other pages!
Incorrect Syntax: Typos or syntax errors in the code to add to your liquid file (above) can lead to unintended indexing issues.
Neglecting Regular Reviews: As your store evolves, regularly review your noindex settings to ensure they still align with your SEO strategy.
FAQ
Q: Will noindexing tag collections hurt my traffic?
A: No, it directs search engine bots to focus on more important pages. You will be fine if you have collections set up to capture that traffic. For example, if you have a tag for Body Wash and want related traffic, then ensure you still have a ‘Body Wash’ collection.
Q: How often should I update my robots.txt file?
A: Review and update it whenever you make significant changes to your store's structure or content.
This guide is written by Hedgehog, a done with you digital marketing consultancy specialising in small and medium businesses in Australia. We offer digital marketing consulting, coaching, and training to help SMBs in-house their digital marketing growth.
Noindexing tag collections in Shopify is a strategic move to enhance your store's SEO efficiency. By focusing search engines on your main content, you can improve your site's overall search engine ranking and visibility.