The Recent Update – News broke out quietly from the Shopify admin, wherein the most famous and 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 most recent feature seems to be one of the most important news items 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 page is 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 that enables Shopify customers and merchants to see what pages you do or don’t want to be 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, wherein the .txt file contains the list of instructions for each search engine/index for what 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 valuable asset and a simple text file that significantly influences and benefits SEO. The Shopify robots.txt controls the traffic overloading and informs the search engine (SEO) that the page needs to be crawled or indexed.
So, in simple terms, we can say that robots.txt Files tell the search engine if the web page is causing a high overload on the server/internet.
Note – You should not use the robots.txt file as the means to hide your web pages from the Google Search Bots and Engines, resulting in the index, or crawl the information available on a specific web page. As the Derivatives in the Robots.txt files are case-sensitive, it is highly recommendable to make only one version of the URL or Domain Name using canonicalization methods.
There is a slight difference between the two methods, crawling and indexing, according to the definition of SEO. So we can say that crawling is the process where you follow your link or Google tracks your website for a specific purpose.
On the other hand, if any crawler or visitor saves the link in a search engine database, it is indexing.
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 make in 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 implementation of editing to ensure it is correct; moreover, any steps cannot 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 rising in 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 web store is not a dream anymore; E-commerce has successfully taken over the traditional retail landscape in the 21st century. There are around 12 million E-commerce online web stores across the entire globe.
Moreover, several people in the industry 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, informing the other search engines about your organization’s site.
- However, one caveat is that try using 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 ranking on Google bots/engines. Mapping the different keywords is also essential to bring your web page to higher-ranking levels.
- Page optimization is also a callout to highlight the ranking and improve SEO on Google engines. 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.
- Ensure the primary content and some critical marketing strategies that can add value to earn a mention to get the most of the purchase. Explicit and conscious content is valuable and far more essential than quantity.
With these strategies and SEO’s best practices mentioned above, you can make your website and e-shop a fast-loading site and can march in lock steps 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 pen down my draft by adding that Shopify is now the best E-commerce platform here for 2021. Shopify software developers can bring in exciting webshops for you.
We are here; speak with us. We will do our best to enhance your business.
