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Free Shopify AI visibility checker (the criteria a real check should cover)

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What a real Shopify AI visibility check covers

A real Shopify AI visibility check covers six categories: Catalog eligibility, per-channel access in the Agentic Storefronts admin, robots.txt.liquid AI-bot hygiene, product schema completeness, product-data quality against Shopify's seven AI-input fields, and AI prompt testing against ChatGPT / Perplexity / Gemini. Shallow checks cover one or two of these. A useful check covers all six.

The criteria synthesise Shopify's Catalog1, Agentic admin2, robots.txt.liquid3, Catalog-optimization4, and optimizing-for-AI5 docs. A check that omits any one of the six leaves the merchant without a definitive answer.

The six categories a real check covers

Each category breaks down into specific checks. Catalog eligibility = 11 gates. Channel access = per-channel toggles in admin.shopify.com/agentic. robots.txt.liquid = audit for AI-bot Disallow rules. Schema = Product, Offer, Brand, AggregateRating presence. Product data = seven AI-input fields per product. AI prompt testing = 10-20 category queries with capture of surfacing rate.

CategoryChecksOutput
Catalog eligibility11 gates (store + product)Pass / fail per gate
Channel accessPer-channel toggle auditActive channels list
robots.txt.liquidAI-bot Disallow rule auditBlocked bot list
SchemaProduct / Offer / Brand / AggregateRatingPresent / missing
Product data7 AI-input categories per productScore per product
AI prompt testing10-20 category queries × 3 enginesSurfacing rate

Common gaps in shallow checks

Three gaps show up in most automated tools. They check robots.txt but not robots.txt.liquid theme-side — they fetch the rendered file but don't read the Liquid source. They check Product schema but not the Shopify-specific Catalog field set (Type, Vendor, Tags, Barcode). And they don't run live AI prompt tests — they extrapolate from indexability rather than confirming actual surfacing.

The DIY check checklist

Eight steps to run the full audit yourself. Budget 2-3 hours per store. The audit produces a written report covering all six categories — usable for prioritizing fixes, comparing to industry peers, or briefing an external implementation team.

  1. Walk the Catalog eligibility checklist (11 gates).
  2. Open admin.shopify.com/agentic; document active channels and toggle settings.
  3. Audit robots.txt.liquid for AI-bot Disallow rules.
  4. Run a JSON-LD audit (Rich Results Test) on the homepage, a collection page, and 3 PDPs.
  5. Score 5 random products against Shopify's seven AI-input categories.
  6. Run 10 category queries in ChatGPT (logged-in, US session).
  7. Run the same 10 queries in Perplexity.
  8. Run the same 10 queries in Gemini.
  9. Document findings per category in a single report.

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