SEO Audit
The dashboard view of every SEO issue ProRank finds in your store, grouped by rule and resource type.
ProRank's audit reads almost everything through the Shopify Admin API, which means it sees the same data Shopify exposes — not what a third-party crawler would render. That has consequences for a few rules (meta description, alt text, H1) covered below.
What the audit covers
- Products — title, SEO title, SEO description, handle, primary media alt.
- Collections — title, SEO title, SEO description, handle.
- Pages — title, SEO title, SEO description, handle.
- Articles — title, SEO title, SEO description, image alt, publish date, author.
- Blog indexes — blog-level SEO title and description.
- Storefront sanity checks on representative templates (product, collection, page, article, home, blog index) for schema rendering and basic markup.
Detection rules
Each detected issue is tagged with a rule id. Rule ids are stable and used by both the dashboard grouping and Autopilot.
| Rule | Scope | How to fix |
|---|---|---|
| missing_meta_title | Products, Collections, Pages, Articles, Blog indexes | Metadata tool — write a title in the 30–60 character range. |
| missing_meta_description | Same as above | Metadata tool — write a 141–159 character description. Many themes otherwise render a fallback from body or page content. |
| short_meta_title | Same as above | Metadata tool — bring title up to at least 30 chars. |
| long_meta_title | Same as above | Metadata tool — trim title to ≤ 60 chars. |
| short_meta_description | Same as above | Metadata tool — write a 141–159 char description. |
| long_meta_description | Same as above | Metadata tool — trim description to ≤ 159 chars. |
| missing_alt_text | Product media (Admin API) | Metadata / Images tool. Note: this rule does NOT scan theme-rendered images. |
| noindex_conflict | Detection-only | Manual review — flagged for human judgment, not auto-fixed. |
The meta description fallback nuance
Many Shopify themes have a quiet but important behaviour: when a resource's seo.description field is empty, the theme can render a fallback meta description from page or body content. Third-party crawlers (such as Ahrefs) read the rendered HTML and may report that fallback as "meta description too long". ProRank reads the Admin API field and reports it as "missing meta description".
The fix is the same in both cases: write a proper 141–159 character seo.description in the Metadata tool. Once the field is set, the theme has explicit text to use instead of a fallback and both audits should align after a recrawl.
What ProRank does NOT audit
- On-page H1. H1 is rendered by the theme, not stored on Shopify resources (the Page title is the closest equivalent, and themes are free to render it as
h1orh2). We do not flag missing H1. - Theme-rendered shared images. Trust badges, decorative icons, Shopify video poster fallbacks, theme rich-text images — these live in theme assets or theme templates, not in the product Media tab, so the
missing_alt_textrule does not scan them. Decorative images should keepalt=""per WCAG anyway. - The
/collections/allautomatic collection. Shopify does not expose this collection through the Admin API. We can detect that it's indexed (via a crawl-side check) but we cannot edit its SEO fields. Use Theme SEO Controls to apply a noindex via the theme template. - Homepage
/root SEO. The home page title and meta description live in Shopify Admin → Online Store → Preferences, not on a resource the app can edit. We surface the values for awareness, but the fix has to happen in Shopify Preferences.
Severity model
Issues are classified high, medium, or low. We deliberately keep the bar high for "high": missing title, missing description on indexed resources, broken internal link target, missing schema on a template where Shopify expects one. Stylistic issues (short / long deviations within ±5 chars) sit at low.
The dashboard score is breadth-weighted — fixing every issue on a small set of pages moves the needle less than fixing the same rule across many pages.
Audit cadence
The scheduler container runs audits on a rolling cadence per store. You can also click Run audit on the dashboard to force an immediate re-scan — useful right after a batch of fixes.
Audit runs are counted against the plan's audit cycle quota; see Billing & Trial.
From audit to fix
Each rule maps cleanly to a tool:
Metadata issues
Missing / short / long titles and descriptions go to the Metadata tool. Per-row AI Generate, ranges enforced (title 30–60, meta 141–159).
Read more →Missing schema
Schema generator + Live Schema Validation. Confirm the JSON-LD app embed is enabled on the active theme.
Read more →Image issues
Missing alt, oversized product images, theme image refs. Two distinct fix paths.
Read more →Linking & indexing
Internal Links for orphans, IndexNow for changed URLs, Sitemap Health for the Shopify XML sitemap.
Read more →