Sitemap & Indexing

What ProRank offers

• A Shopify XML Sitemap Health check. An in-app card that fetches /sitemap.xml, reports its HTTP status, surfaces the resource counts Shopify exposes, scans a sample for noindex conflicts, and reminds you that Shopify — not ProRank — owns the native file.
• An optional filtered XML sitemap. A crawler-facing sitemap served at /apps/prorank/sitemap.xml. It can include products, collections, pages, and blog posts, and can exclude manually listed URLs or URLs that render noindex. It is disabled by default.
• An optional HTML sitemap. A page-style index served via the Shopify app proxy at /apps/prorank/sitemap, useful as a navigational page for visitors and internal link discovery. It is not a replacement for Shopify's XML sitemap. Per-resource toggles (products, collections, pages, blogs) control what shows up.

The filtered XML sitemap (optional)

The filtered XML sitemap is generated by ProRank from Shopify Admin API resources and served through Shopify's app proxy. It is useful when you want a cleaner discovery feed than the native Shopify sitemap, for example excluding known noindex URLs or manual URL exceptions.

URL:    https://your-shop.com/apps/prorank/sitemap.xml
Source: Shopify app proxy
Owner:  ProRank (separate from Shopify /sitemap.xml)
Default: disabled
Used for: optional filtered XML discovery

If you want crawlers to discover the filtered sitemap, submit the proxy URL in Google Search Console or use Theme SEO Controls to add a Sitemap: directive to robots.txt.liquid. That robots update requires approved theme-write access.

The HTML sitemap (optional)

ProRank ships an HTML overview page that lists store resources in a human-readable format using the same filtered URL set as the ProRank XML sitemap. It is served through Shopify's app proxy, so the URL looks like a regular storefront URL (no app subdomain), but the response is generated by ProRank.

URL:    https://your-shop.com/apps/prorank/sitemap
Source: Shopify app proxy
Owner:  ProRank (not Shopify)
Used for: human navigation / link-discovery aid

Per-resource toggles live in the Sitemap tab. They control which sections render on the ProRank XML and HTML sitemap outputs (products, collections, pages, blogs). The toggles are stored as a prorank/sitemap_config metafield.

Shopify XML Sitemap Health check

The Health check fetches your store's /sitemap.xml, parses it, and reports:

• HTTP status (200 / 5xx / blocked).
• Whether the sitemap index / URL set structure is valid.
• Resource counts per child sitemap (products, collections, pages, blogs).
• A sampled noindex-in-sitemap check for URLs listed in the native sitemap.

What we are not claiming

A few things deliberately not in scope, because we don't want to be misleading:

• No direct editing of Shopify's native XML sitemap. ProRank's filtered XML output is separate. It does not change what Shopify serves at /sitemap.xml.
• No promise that every crawler will prefer the filtered sitemap. You can submit or advertise /apps/prorank/sitemap.xml, but crawlers may still discover Shopify's native sitemap too.
• Per-URL changefreq / priority overrides on the Shopify sitemap. Shopify sets those values; the fields aren't writable.

Submitting URLs to search engines

For getting changed URLs in front of search engines quickly, the right tool is IndexNow — a push protocol consumed by Bing / Microsoft (and IndexNow-compatible engines). Google Search Console doesn't use IndexNow but does pick up changes from Shopify's XML sitemap on its own cadence, and from URL inspection.

Related

Need to confirm what Shopify is serving? Open https://your-shop.com/sitemap.xml in a private window and compare with the Health check report.