Free SEO Tools for Shopify: The Set to Install on Day One
The free SEO tools worth setting up for a Shopify store on day one are Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Shopify’s own web performance report, Google PageSpeed Insights and a site crawler. Together they tell you whether your pages are indexed, what people search to find them, how fast the store is for real visitors, and which pages have technical problems. Each needs one small step on the Shopify side, listed below.
The Shopify steps come from the Help Center pages on finding and submitting your sitemap, improving web performance and crawling your store, read on October 23, 2026. Search Console, Bing and PageSpeed are the free tools we use on our own sites; paid SEO apps are compared separately in best Shopify SEO apps.
The free toolset
| Tool | What it tells you | The Shopify step |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Which pages are indexed, the queries that show your store, clicks and positions | Verify the domain, submit /sitemap.xml |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | The same for Bing’s search results | Add and verify the site, submit /sitemap.xml |
| Shopify web performance report | Core Web Vitals from real visitors to your store | Nothing; it’s in your admin |
| Google PageSpeed Insights | Detailed lab and field metrics for a single page | Paste a page URL |
| A site crawler, such as Screaming Frog | Broken links, missing titles, redirect chains across the whole store | Create a Web Bot Auth signature to authorize the crawler |
Shopify generates the sitemap for you: every store has yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml, linking to separate sitemaps for products, collections, blog posts and pages, and it updates automatically when you add content. If you use international domains, each domain has its own sitemap, and languages you sell in are added to them automatically.
Connect Search Console
Search Console is the one tool to set up even if you skip the rest. Verify the store first, then submit the sitemap.
- In Search Console, open the menu, choose Add property, select URL prefix and enter your domain with
https://, then Continue. - Under Verify ownership, choose HTML tag and copy the full meta tag.
- In Shopify, go to Online Store, open the theme’s actions menu and click Edit code.
- In Layout, open
theme.liquid, paste the tag on a blank line directly below the opening<head>tag, and Save. - Back in Search Console, click Verify. If it fails, Shopify suggests waiting 15 minutes and trying again.
- Go to Indexing > Sitemaps, enter
sitemap.xmlunder Add a new sitemap and click Submit.
The store must not be in private mode during verification, and Google can’t read the sitemap of a store in private mode at all. If you aren’t ready to launch, turn private mode off for the verification and back on afterward. With international domains, verify and submit each domain; each meta tag goes on its own line in theme.liquid. Google doesn’t promise how long indexing takes.
Once data arrives, the pages report and the queries report are the two places to start; the Shopify SEO audit shows what to look for in each.
Add Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing runs its own index, so it gets its own setup. Add the site in Bing Webmaster Tools, verify it with Bing’s meta tag pasted into theme.liquid the same way as Google’s, and submit the same /sitemap.xml.
Measure speed: Shopify’s report and PageSpeed
Shopify’s web performance reports use Core Web Vitals from real visits to your store, so use them for the trend and PageSpeed Insights to investigate one slow page. Shopify warns that many third-party scanner recommendations, such as enabling compression or adding a CDN, are already handled on its platform. What to fix, and in which order, is in Shopify speed optimization.
Crawl your store with an authorized crawler
A crawler such as Screaming Frog checks every page for missing titles, broken links and redirect chains. Shopify’s Web Bot Auth lets you authorize your own crawlers, scripts and audit tools with a signature:
- Go to Online Store > Preferences.
- In Crawler access, click Create signature.
- Give it a Name, pick the Domain and choose how long it’s Valid for, then click Create.
- Copy the Signature-Input and Signature values into your crawler’s custom HTTP headers, along with
Signature-Agentset to"https://shopify.com".
Signatures last up to 3 months and can’t be renewed, so create a new one when it expires. They work only for crawling the storefront, not checkout, and each is tied to one connected domain. Search engines don’t need a signature to index your store. For the technical issues a crawl surfaces, see Shopify technical SEO, which sits with our other guides in the Shopify SEO hub.
FAQ
Does Shopify create a sitemap automatically?
Every Shopify store has an automatic sitemap at /sitemap.xml, with linked sitemaps for products, collections, blog posts and pages, updated whenever you add content.
How do I verify my Shopify store in Google Search Console?
Add a URL-prefix property, copy the HTML meta tag, paste it below the opening <head> tag in theme.liquid, save, and click Verify in Search Console. Private mode has to be off while you verify.
Is PageSpeed Insights accurate for Shopify? PageSpeed Insights measures one page at the moment you test it, and its lab score can change between runs. For the store as a whole, Shopify’s web performance report is the better measure because it uses real visits, and many of PageSpeed’s server suggestions are already handled by Shopify.
How do I let an SEO crawler access my Shopify store? Create a Web Bot Auth signature in Online Store > Preferences under Crawler access, and add its headers to the crawler. Signatures expire after at most 3 months.