Finding Your Shopify Sitemap – Edit, Update & Submit XML Sitemaps

A Shopify sitemap is an auto generated sitemap that organizes all important URLs within a Shopify store, including product pages, collection pages, blog posts, and static pages. This sitemap is important for improving the store’s SEO as it helps search engines like Google and Bing efficiently crawl and index the site’s content.

In Shopify, the sitemap is auto-generated and accessible at yourstore.com/sitemap.xml. It uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) to present a structured hierarchy of the site, allowing search engine crawlers to easily find and prioritize essential pages.

Why it matters: An XML sitemap ensures that important pages like product pages and collection pages are crawled and indexed by search engines, improving visibility in organic search results. For large ecommerce stores, this guarantees that new and updated content gets noticed by search engines quickly.

An example of a Shopify sitemap can be found below:

xml sitemap example for Shopify

Types of Sitemaps

There are two primary types of sitemaps: XML and HTML. Each type serves a distinct purpose and is used by different entities to navigate and understand your website’s content. This is true for not only Shopify store, but any website on the internet.

XML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps are machine-readable files that provide search engines with a structured list of your website’s URLs. These sitemaps contain metadata about each URL, such as the last update date, frequency of updates, and relative importance.

Designed specifically for search engines, XML sitemaps help search engine crawlers efficiently navigate and index your website’s content. By informing search engines about new or updated content, XML sitemaps ensure that your website’s latest changes are quickly reflected in search results, enhancing your site’s visibility and SEO performance.

HTML Sitemaps

HTML sitemaps, on the other hand, are designed for human users. They provide a visual representation of your website’s structure and content, making it easier for visitors to navigate and find specific pages. While HTML sitemaps primarily improve user experience, they also help search engines understand your website’s hierarchy.

However, they are not as effective as XML sitemaps in informing search engines about new or updated content. By offering a user-friendly navigation tool, HTML sitemaps can enhance the overall usability of your site, complementing the technical benefits provided by XML sitemaps.

How Shopify Automatically Generates Sitemaps

Shopify automatically creates a sitemap.xml file for every store. This automated process eliminates the need for store owners to manually create a sitemap. This sitemap includes various child sitemaps, such as for products, collections, blogs, and other web pages. The parent sitemap acts as the main index that links to these individual sitemaps. Shopify updates the sitemap file each time new pages are added or changes are made, ensuring that search engines like Google and Bing always have the latest URLs.

The default Shopify sitemap contains:

  • Product pages: Lists all product URLs.
  • Collection pages: Covers category or collection URLs.
  • Blog posts: Lists URLs for all blog content.
  • Other web pages: Any other pages like About, Contact, etc.

Why Sitemaps Matter for SEO

A Shopify sitemap significantly enhances a store’s SEO by facilitating faster and more accurate indexing of the site’s content by helping search engines crawl and index product pages. It organizes URLs in a structured format, allowing search engines like Google to navigate through the site efficiently. This results in better index coverage and improves rankings in organic search.

For larger sites with thousands of products or collections, a sitemap index organizes URLs into logical groupings, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index all pages. Sitemaps ensure that all pages are discovered by search engine crawlers, even those that may not have internal links pointing to them. Google Search Console can be used to monitor the performance of the sitemap and provide reports on which pages have been indexed and which need further optimization.

Search engines like Google prioritize websites that are well-organized and easy to crawl. A properly optimized Shopify sitemap helps ensure that important pages—especially product and collection pages—are indexed and ranked, increasing organic traffic and improving the site’s visibility in search results.

Benefits of Sitemaps

Sitemaps offer several benefits for your Shopify store, including:

  • Improved Crawlability: Sitemaps help search engines discover and crawl your website’s content more efficiently, ensuring that your latest changes are reflected in search results.
  • Enhanced Visibility: By providing a clear roadmap of your website’s content, sitemaps can improve your store’s visibility in search results, driving more organic traffic to your site.
  • Better User Experience: HTML sitemaps can improve user experience by providing a visual representation of your website’s structure and content, making it easier for visitors to navigate and find specific pages.
  • Increased Crawl Budget: By submitting a sitemap to Google, you can help ensure that your website’s most important pages are crawled and indexed regularly, increasing your crawl budget and improving your store’s overall SEO performance.

By leveraging both XML and HTML sitemaps, you can enhance your Shopify store’s SEO, improve user experience, and ensure that your content is easily discoverable by both search engines and visitors.

How to Edit and Optimize Your Shopify Sitemap

Although sitemap Shopify are generated automatically, further optimization can improve your store’s SEO. By removing irrelevant or low-value pages, such as search result pages or filtered URLs, you can refine the sitemap and direct search engines to the most important parts of the site. Using meta tags and canonical tags can help avoid duplicate content issues, which can negatively affect SEO.

Best practices for optimizing a Shopify sitemap include:

  • Prioritize high-quality pages: Ensure that only important, high-quality product, collection, and blog post pages are included in the sitemap.
  • Exclude duplicate content: Use canonical tags to signal the preferred version of a page to search engines.
  • Update the sitemap regularly: Whenever you add new products, collections, or blogs, ensure the sitemap is up to date.

For custom Shopify sitemaps, store owners can manually edit the sitemap or use third-party apps to include custom URLs or exclude irrelevant ones.

Why it matters: Optimizing a sitemap can help search engine crawlers focus on the most valuable content, improving indexation and boosting organic traffic to high-conversion pages.

TagPage / Sub-collection Sitemaps

One default that Shopify does not provide is a sitemaps for tag pages or sub-collections. Currently you will need to create these manually and submit them to GSC. This is simple. We have a tutorial on how to create a tag page or sub-collection sitemap.

Submit Shopify Sitemap to Google Search Console

Once your Shopify sitemap is ready, submit your sitemap to Google Search Console to ensure that Google can crawl and index your website efficiently. To do this, log in to Google Search Console, go to the Sitemaps section, enter your sitemap URL (/sitemap.xml), and click submit.

Submitting a sitemap allows you to monitor the performance of your pages through the index coverage report, which provides insights into how many of your pages have been indexed, any crawl errors, and potential SEO issues that need to be addressed.

You can also submit the sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools to improve visibility on other search engines like Bing.

We’ve also found with Shopify, particularly with larger store, you can improve indexing improve crawling rates of your site if you split the sitemaps into their individual URLs, and submit the individual sitemap URLs to GSC.

Common Shopify Sitemap Errors and Fixes

Even though Shopify manages your sitemap.xml automatically, there are common errors that may arise, affecting the crawlability and indexation of your pages. These include:

  • Broken URLs: These result in 404 errors, which can prevent search engines from indexing those pages.
  • Duplicate content: Having multiple pages with the same or very similar content can confuse search engines, leading to poor indexing.
  • Missing pages: Occasionally, important pages like new product or collection pages may not appear in the sitemap, leading to missed indexing opportunities.

How to fix them:

  • Broken URLs: Use 301 redirects in Shopify admin to ensure that any broken URLs are properly redirected.
  • Duplicate content: Implement canonical tags to signal the correct page to index.
  • Missing pages: Check the Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools for any errors related to missing pages and ensure they are included in the sitemap.

Why it matters: Correcting these errors ensures that search engines can fully crawl and index your site, boosting your store’s SEO and avoiding penalties for broken or duplicate content.

Monitoring and Updating Shopify Sitemaps Regularly

It’s important to monitor your Shopify sitemap regularly to ensure it reflects the current state of your store. When you add new products, collections, or blogs, these pages should appear in the sitemap, prompting search engines to crawl and index them.

Regular monitoring through tools like Google Search Console helps you identify any index coverage issues or crawl errors. Additionally, updating the sitemap ensures that all important pages are indexed quickly. Shopify handles this automatically, but periodic audits are still recommended to ensure there are no issues such as missing pages or unnecessary URLs in the sitemap.

Why it matters: Regular updates to your sitemap.xml ensure that search engines can continuously discover and index new content, which is critical for maintaining high rankings in search results.

Popular Questions

Below are common questions we get asked about Shopify sitemaps.

What is an XML Sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all of the important URLs on a website in a structured format, helping search engines crawl and index the website efficiently.

How do I find my Shopify Sitemap?

You can find your Shopify sitemap by navigating to yourstore.com/sitemap.xml, which contains links to products, collections, blog posts, and other web pages.

Why is a Sitemap Important for SEO?

A sitemap is crucial for SEO because it helps search engine crawlers like Google and Bing index all the critical pages of your website, ensuring they appear in search results.

How do I Submit my Shopify Sitemap to Google?

To submit your Shopify sitemap to Google, log into Google Search Console, go to the Sitemaps section, enter the sitemap URL, and click submit.

What are the Common Errors in Shopify Sitemaps?

Common errors include broken URLs, 404 errors, and duplicate content. These errors can prevent your site from being properly crawled and indexed by search engines.