The Recent Update – News broke quietly from the Shopify admin, where the leading e-commerce platform announced this week that Shopify merchants can now edit the default robots.txt file. This popular E-commerce platform has consistently improved modern web stores. The latest feature appears to be a major news item for retail merchants/businessmen, and Shopify users.
Jackson Lo, SEO lead, growth at Shopify, told Search Engine Land this Friday that opening access to edit robots.txt will enable Shopify merchants and leaders to control how their content or web pages are crawled.
Shopify Changed -Gone are those days when Shopify users and customers were restricted from access to robots. txt File. This is one of the best welcome changes, enabling Shopify customers and merchants to see which pages you do or don’t want crawled and used to hide private user information.
Requesting you to please read below for more information.
Table of Contents
What are Robots.txt Files and Unique Features of Robots.txt?
Shopify robots.txt is a publicly available exclusion standard. It allows the webmaster to instruct the web engine bot located in the website’s root. The E-commerce platform Shopify generates a default robots.txt File, which lists instructions for each search engine/index about which web pages can or cannot be crawled.
The file specifies the “User-Name” and the other part of the website that the user-agent cannot access.
- https://www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt User-Agent Name – Google Bot
- Domain Name- That cannot be accessed.
A robots.txt file is a simple text file that significantly influences SEO. The Shopify robots.txt file controls traffic throttling and informs search engines (SEO) that the page should be crawled or indexed.
So, in simple terms, robots.txt Files tell search engines whether a web page is causing a high load on the server/internet.
Note on a specific web page. Because the Derivatives in the Robots.txt files are case-sensitive, it is highly recommended to use canonicalization to produce a single canonical URL or Domain Name.
There is a slight difference between the two methods, crawling and indexing, according to the definition of SEO. Crawling is the process of following links or using Google’s crawler to index a website for a specific purpose.
On the other hand, if any crawler or visitor saves the link in a search engine database, it is indexed.
How to Edit Robots.txt in Shopify?
It is no secret that we think that Shopify is the leading E-commerce platform in today’s global market, offering day-to-day services and advanced features. Search engines/ bots: Google, Yahoo, Baidu, etc.
Constantly crawl the internet to discover some new accumulated meaningful information, and is also referred to as the source of search results/outcomes.
This is what the robots.txt file looks like this-
Until now, we have not had access to Shopify robots.txt. However, things changed this Friday, when Shopify made the default robots.txt File editable to create new crawling instructions.
We can edit the robots.txt files or hide a web page from the search using the following steps.
- From your Shopify admin, directly go to the built-in Online web-store Themes,
- Now, click on the action, and kindly click the Edit Code option.
- You will receive an option of “Adding New Templates” and “Creating New Templates.” Click on both the mentioned options simultaneously,
- Open the template and make any changes you want to your robots.txt File.
- At this moment, after drawing the necessary changes, save the file to robots.txt Liquid to publish them on your website or store.
As the robots.txt file indicates, when crawling and indexing your web page, it is mandatory to review the edits to ensure they are correct; moreover, no steps can be ignored.
Of course, we are always available. Come and reach us – Contact Us
However, let us go to some primary standards and practices to improve SEO ranking.
Secret Fingertips to Improve the SEO on your Shopify Website
The Shopify (SaaS) platform has been very successful and is steadily gaining popularity. Shopify merchants have been waiting for this recent news to roll out these robots. txt file was one of the most requested features among Shopify users and merchants.
E-commerce leaders and Shopify users can edit their .txt files to prevent specific URLs from being crawled and further indexed.
Shopify SEO 2021
Owning an online store is no longer a dream; e-commerce has taken over the traditional retail landscape in the 21st century. There are approximately 12 million e-commerce websites worldwide.
Moreover, several industry professionals have turned to this leading platform. They did it to get their personalized, modern, and digital e-storefront, especially after the pandemic.
As we know, more than 100 million Indians make at least one e-purchase daily. Therefore, here are some tips and ways to improve your web-store rank and SEO on the leading E-commerce platform, Shopify.
- Most replies are from tools like Google; however, there is an SEO checklist to help you grow your e-store. All Shopify stores should set up Google Search Analytics to inform other search engines about your organization’s site.
- However, one caveat is to use search engine consoles to detect any crawling errors on your web page if a bot fails to reach a specific page.
- Moreover, drafting specific keywords and search volumes is critical to improving your SEO rankings on Google’s search engine. Mapping different keywords is also essential for improving your web page’s ranking.
- Page optimization is also a callout to highlight rankings and improve SEO on Google search results. You can always try to include the main keyword at the start of the web page. Attempt to have 50-60 characters in your Headline. Ensure you write complete sentences and editorial titles to optimize your document/information,/web page.
- Could you ensure the primary content and key marketing strategies add value and earn a mention to maximize purchase likelihood? Explicit, conscious content is more valuable and more essential than quantity.
With the strategies and SEO best practices outlined above, you can make your website and e-shop faster-loading and move in lockstep to make things much more manageable.
Top-Rated Shopify Experts in India
With the ongoing digitalization of modern life, the number of digital buyers is climbing every year. More interestingly, e-sales are expected to surpass $4.5 trillion worldwide.
Therefore, hire shopify experts who can promise you the best results. They must help you create the most beautiful, eye-catching website or an interesting, full-fledged app for your enterprise.
Lastly, I would like to finalize my draft by noting that Shopify is now the best e-commerce platform for 2021. Shopify software developers can build exciting web shops for you.
We are here; speak with us. We will do our best to enhance your business.
