SEO Audit
Review the SEO issues ProRank finds in supported store content, grouped by rule and resource type.
The Free audit reads supported Shopify Admin API data for products, collections, pages, and articles, and checks whether the storefront is publicly reachable. It does not crawl live HTML. Eligible paid plans can also use ProRank's cloud crawler for page-level checks. Every report identifies its source and discloses scan limits.
What the audit covers
- Products — title, SEO fields, description depth, product type, vendor, and supported media.
- Collections — title, SEO fields, description depth, and supported collection image.
- Pages — title, SEO title, SEO description, handle.
- Articles — title, SEO title, SEO description, body depth, and handle.
- Storefront — password protection or a failed public reachability check.
Detection rules
The Shopify-data report groups these supported finding types by affected resource.
| Rule | Scope | How to fix |
|---|---|---|
| Missing or custom SEO title not set | Products, collections, pages, and articles | Metadata tool — write a title in the 30–60 character range. |
| Missing meta description | Products, collections, pages, and articles without a usable body fallback | Metadata tool — write a 141–159 character description. Many themes otherwise render a fallback from body or page content. |
| Short SEO title | Products, collections, pages, and articles | Metadata tool — bring title up to at least 30 chars. |
| Long SEO title | Products | Metadata tool — trim title to ≤ 60 chars. |
| Short meta description | Products, collections, pages, and articles | Metadata tool — write a 141–159 char description. |
| Long meta description | Products, collections, pages, and articles | Metadata tool — trim description to ≤ 159 chars. |
| Thin content | Products, collections, pages, and articles | Add useful, original copy appropriate to the resource. |
| Missing image alt text | Supported product media and collection images | Images tool — add descriptive alt text. Theme-rendered shared images are not included. |
| Oversized source image | Supported product media and collection images with dimensions | Images tool — optimize the source and review the result before replacement. |
| Missing product type or vendor | Products | Add the missing merchandising field in Shopify or the relevant ProRank workflow. |
| Storefront access problem | Public storefront reachability | Review password protection or the reported fetch failure. |
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. ProRank checks the Admin API field and the available body text: it reports a missing description when there is no useful fallback, or an overly long generated fallback when the body text would produce one.
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 the Shopify-data audit does NOT inspect
- 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. A paid cloud crawl may surface its public URL, but the Shopify-data audit cannot inspect or 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 Shopify-data audit can edit. Review or change them in Shopify Preferences.
Severity model
Issues are classified high, medium, or low. The strongest penalties are reserved for findings such as a very thin product description, storefront password protection, or a very large image. Lower-impact merchandising gaps and metadata deviations sit lower in the queue.
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
Audits run when you click Run audit, which is useful after a batch of fixes. Scheduled Autopilot scans are a separate automation workflow and should not be confused with scheduled SEO audits.
Audit runs are counted against the plan's audit cycle quota; see Billing & Trial.
Coverage and limits
The Shopify-data audit paginates supported products, collections, pages and articles up to 5,000 of each resource type. If a catalogue is larger, the report names the truncated resource types instead of presenting the subset as complete.
The cloud crawl is capped at 500 public pages per run. A stalled cloud run falls back to a visible Shopify-data report after the recovery timeout; ProRank does not promise that every URL or every theme-rendered element was checked.
Continue with ProRank’s focused tools
Use the report for detected metadata, content, and image work. ProRank also provides separate focused tools for schema, linking, sitemaps, and indexing:
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).
Fix Shopify metadata issues →Schema workflow
Schema generator + Live Schema Validation. Confirm the JSON-LD app embed is enabled on the active theme.
Open Shopify schema documentation →Image issues
Missing alt, oversized product images, theme image refs. Two distinct fix paths.
Fix Shopify image issues →Separate linking & indexing tools
Internal Links for orphans, IndexNow for changed URLs, Sitemap Health for the Shopify XML sitemap.
Fix Shopify internal links →