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SEO Settings

Shopify SEO Settings — Every Field That Matters

Shopify exposes SEO controls in four panels. Online Store > Preferences for the homepage and sitewide defaults; the Search engine listing panel on every product, collection, page, and blog post; the media library for image alt text; and the theme code editor for templates and JSON-LD. The recommended title length is less than 60 characters with a hard maximum of 702, and the recommended meta description is less than 160 characters.

This cluster is the field-by-field reference. The five leaves below cover title tags, meta descriptions, URLs, Online Store > Preferences, and Grow SEO. Read the hub for the install order and the fallback rules; jump to the leaf you need.

Where the SEO fields live in the Shopify admin

Title tags live in two places per resource: the auto-generated theme template (which inserts the store name) and the Search engine listing > Page title override. Meta descriptions live only in the Search engine listing > Meta description field. URL slugs live in the resource editor (Product, Collection, Page, Blog post) under the URL handle field. Sitewide defaults — homepage title, homepage description, store name — live in Online Store > Preferences. Image alt text lives in the media library.

Shopify's SEO overview1 states that merchants can edit "title tags, meta descriptions, URLs for blog posts, webpages, products, and collections." Each resource type has the same panel, accessed by clicking "Edit website SEO" inside the resource editor. The three fields are: Page title, Meta description, URL handle.

One pattern that catches first-time owners: changing a product's handle while it's published creates an automatic 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL — but only while the published status is preserved. If you unpublish the product, change the handle, then republish, the auto-redirect doesn't fire. The URL slug leaf covers the safe sequence.

The Shopify title tag rule: 60 recommended, 70 max

Shopify's Adding keywords doc states: 'You can enter up to 70 characters in the title.' The recommendation is less than 60 characters because Google truncates titles at roughly 600 pixels, which usually corresponds to 50-60 characters. Themes auto-append the store name to the title, which eats character budget — a 60-character Page title becomes an 80-character full title in the rendered HTML.

The leaf at /shopify-seo/title-tags/ covers the theme template behaviour, the character-budget math, the store-name appendage, and the pattern for long-title products that lose their store-name suffix when truncated.

The Shopify meta description rule: under 160 characters

Shopify's Adding keywords doc recommends meta descriptions under 160 characters. Google truncates at roughly 920 pixels in mobile (about 120 characters) and 990 pixels on desktop (about 158 characters). The 160-character recommendation accounts for desktop truncation. The bigger pattern owners miss: Google rewrites the meta description more often than the title, and the AI snippet engines (AI Overviews, ChatGPT shopping cards, Perplexity recommendation summaries) generate their own snippets from on-page content — your meta description is one signal among many, not the final SERP / AI surface text.

The leaf at /shopify-seo/meta-descriptions/ covers the 160-char rule in detail, the Google rewrite behaviour, the AI snippet generation pattern, and the empty-description fallback (Shopify themes use the first 160 characters of the resource's main body as the fallback meta description when the field is empty).

URL slugs on Shopify — products, collections, pages, blog

Shopify URL paths are fixed: /products/handle, /collections/handle, /pages/handle, /blogs/blog-name/article-handle. The handle is the editable slug. Themes auto-canonical the resource URL to the primary path. Changing a handle while the resource is published creates an automatic 301 redirect, which is one of the highest-value default behaviours in Shopify SEO. Image file names cannot be changed after upload — rename before uploading or replace the image.

The leaf at /shopify-seo/url-slugs/ covers each resource type, the auto-redirect behaviour, and the bulk handle audit pattern for stores with thousands of products. The Shopify Optimize site structure doc3 confirms image filenames cannot be modified post-upload — a fact most owners discover the hard way.

Online Store > Preferences — the sitewide panel

Online Store > Preferences sets the homepage title tag, homepage meta description, store name (which themes auto-append to titles), social sharing image, Google Analytics ID, Facebook Pixel ID, and the storefront password. It is the single most important sitewide panel for SEO and the first one to configure on any new Shopify store. Shopify's SEO overview confirms the panel as the home for title-tag controls.

The leaf at /shopify-seo/online-store-preferences/ covers each field with the exact admin path and the cascading effects. The password field deserves special attention: while the storefront password is enabled, sitemap readers (Google, Bing) cannot fetch /sitemap.xml — the password-protected-sitemap leaf in cluster 1B covers the failure mode.

Grow SEO — Shopify's early-access AI suggestion tool

Grow SEO is Shopify's AI-driven SEO feature that generates 'AI-driven suggestions tailored to enhance short title tags and short descriptions' on product and collection pages. The verbatim limits per Shopify: max 100 suggestions, English only, not compatible with Hydrogen, product and collection pages only. The feature is in early access — 'available only to certain merchants' as of May 2026. It edits the search-engine-listing page title and the on-page description, not the meta description field.

The leaf at /shopify-seo/grow-seo-early-access/ covers what Grow SEO does, who has access, the suggestion limits, and where it fits in the broader Shopify SEO workflow4. The honest framing: Grow SEO is a scale tool for stores with 500+ products that need pass-1 AI-assisted titles. It is not a substitute for hand-written copy on hero products.

The install order, field by field

The right order on a new store: (1) Online Store > Preferences first — homepage title, homepage description, store name, social image. (2) Resource-level Page title and Meta description on every product, collection, page, and blog post. (3) URL slugs reviewed and locked before publishing (slug changes after publish trigger redirects). (4) Alt text on every image via the media library. (5) Grow SEO enabled last, only if you have early access and 500+ products.

The order matters because of fallbacks. Set the homepage title and description first — that anchors the brand. Then per-resource fields, slowest to fastest (products take longest; pages are quickest). Then alt text. Grow SEO last because it suggests titles for resources that already have a baseline.

  1. HOW-TO Shopify title tag length, 60 characters, 70 max Shopify title tag rules The 60-char recommendation, 70-char hard maximum, theme template behaviour, and the auto-appended store name. 8-min read
  2. HOW-TO Shopify meta description, 160 characters, AI snippet Shopify meta descriptions The 160-character rule, how Google rewrites meta descriptions, and the AI snippet behaviour in 2026. 8-min read
  3. HOW-TO Shopify URL slug, change handle, redirect Editing Shopify URLs URL slug conventions for product, collection, page, and blog. The auto-redirect Shopify fires when you change a handle. 7-min read
  4. REFERENCE Shopify Online Store Preferences, homepage SEO Online Store > Preferences Store name, homepage title tag, homepage meta description, password protection — the four sitewide fields that anchor everything else. 7-min read
  5. EXPLAINER Shopify Grow SEO, AI suggestions, early access Grow SEO (early access) What Grow SEO does, who gets it, the 100-suggestion cap, the Hydrogen incompatibility, and what it does not change. 7-min read

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