Difference between revisions of "Information for SEO Professionals"

From Spiffy Stores Knowledge Base

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<div style="padding:57.32% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/572868581?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" title="Adding search engine data to a product"></iframe></div><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>
 
<div style="padding:57.32% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/572868581?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" title="Adding search engine data to a product"></iframe></div><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>
 
</html>
 
</html>
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== Built-in SEO Features ==
 +
Spiffy Stores includes a range of SEO features that are enabled automatically out of the box. You do not need to install or configure anything to benefit from these:
 +
 +
=== Automatically Generated Sitemaps ===
 +
Your store automatically generates a ''sitemap.xml'' file that is updated in real-time whenever pages, products or collections are published or unpublished. The sitemap includes all public-facing pages, product pages and collection pages, formatted according to the XML sitemap standard. This file is accessible at ''yourstore.com.au/sitemap.xml''.
 +
                                                                                                                       
 +
Because the sitemap is generated dynamically on each request, it always reflects the current state of your store without any need for manual regeneration or caching.
 +
 +
=== Robots.txt ===
 +
A ''robots.txt'' file is automatically served for your store. By default, it allows all crawlers access to public content while blocking common crawler trap paths such as the cart, checkout, and account areas. You cannot edit the ''robots.txt'' file directly, but the defaults are chosen to maximise useful crawl budget while protecting sensitive areas.
 +
 +
=== AI-Generated SEO Meta Descriptions ===
 +
Your Spiffy Store includes an AI-powered description generator that can create SEO metafields based on your product data. These generated texts are editable before saving, giving you full control over the final output. The feature is designed to reduce the time required to create and populate product pages while still allowing human review and refinement.
 +
 +
This ensures that every product page is optimized for search engines, improving click-through rates and organic reach without any manual effort.
 +
 +
=== Canonical URLs ===
 +
All pages on your store automatically output a canonical URL tag in the ''<head>'' section. This helps search engines understand the preferred version of a page when multiple URLs can resolve to the same content (e.g., with or without trailing slashes, with default sorting parameters, etc.).
 +
 +
=== Structured Data / Schema.org ===
 +
Product pages automatically include JSON-LD structured data in the page source, exposing product attributes such as name, description, price, availability and images in a format that Google can use for rich search results. This is rendered without any theme-level configuration.
 +
 +
== Google Search Console Warnings and Errors ==
 +
SEO professionals often import their Spiffy Stores site into Google Search Console (GSC) and immediately see crawl errors, coverage issues or warnings that can appear alarming at first glance. In most cases, these are not cause for concern on the Spiffy Stores platform, for the following reasons:
 +
 +
=== "Page not found" Errors for Internal Paths ===
 +
Spiffy Stores uses a flexible URL routing system. URLs that do not match any published resource &mdash; such as old product handles, deprecated collection paths or internal paths that were never public &mdash; will return a 404 response. Googlebot will report these as crawl errors. Unless those URLs previously existed and were linked from external sites, they have no SEO impact. You can ignore these errors if the URLs in question are not known to have external links pointing to them.
 +
 +
=== Coverage Warnings for "Discovered &mdash; Currently Not Indexed" ===
 +
Google may report pages as "Discovered &mdash; Currently Not Indexed" in the Coverage report. This is normal for pages that Googlebot found while crawling but chose not to index at that time. It does not indicate a problem with your site. Googlebot makes its own indexing decisions based on perceived content quality, crawl budget and signals &mdash; these decisions are outside your store's control. Running a site audit or making structural changes will not automatically resolve this state.
 +
 +
=== "Sitemap Could Not Be Read" Warnings ===
 +
If your sitemap is hosted on Spiffy Stores and GSC reports it as unreadable, check whether you are using the correct canonical domain in GSC (www vs non-www, or HTTP vs HTTPS). Spiffy Stores automatically serves the correct protocol and www/non-www variant based on your store's primary domain setting. Ensure GSC is checked against the exact domain your store uses. Mismatches between the domain registered in GSC and the sitemap URL will cause this warning even when everything is working correctly.
 +
 +
=== "Core Web Vitals" Failures ===
 +
Google's Page Experience signals (including Core Web Vitals) are reported per-URL in GSC. Spiffy Stores is responsible for server-side performance characteristics, while your theme and assets affect client-side metrics. If individual product or collection pages are flagged for poor Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) or Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), this is typically related to theme-level image optimisation, JavaScript bundle size or third-party app scripts &mdash; not platform-level infrastructure. Consider auditing your theme and any installed apps as the first step.
 +
 +
=== Manual Actions ===
 +
If your store has received a manual action notification in GSC, this is a genuine issue that requires attention. Contact Spiffy Stores support with the GSC details so the platform team can investigate whether the action is platform-wide or store-specific.
 +
 +
== Faceted Navigation and URL Explosions ==
 +
One of the most common SEO concerns when auditing a Spiffy Stores site is the presence of a large number of URLs generated by filtering and sorting on collection pages. This section explains why these URLs exist and how they should be evaluated.
 +
 +
=== What Is Faceted Navigation? ===
 +
Collection pages in Spiffy Stores include filtering by product tags, which allows shoppers to narrow down products by attributes such as colour, size, brand or material. Each combination of filters applied creates a unique URL. Additionally, the collection URL can accept query parameters for sorting or pagination. In most Spiffy Stores themes, these filter and sort options are implemented as URL parameters or path segments.
 +
 +
=== Why URL Counts Can Appear High ===
 +
A collection with 10 filterable attributes, each with 3–5 options, can generate dozens of valid URL combinations. Multiply this across dozens of collections and the total number of crawlable URLs can appear very large &mdash; sometimes into the hundreds of thousands on stores with extensive tag use.
 +
 +
This is sometimes called an "explosive" faceted navigation problem. However, the actual SEO risk of these URLs on the Spiffy Stores platform is low, for the following reasons:
 +
 +
* '''Canonical tags''' on all filtered views point to the unfiltered collection page, meaning Google treats all filtered variants as equivalent to the main collection page. The filtered URLs do not compete with each other or with the canonical page for indexing or ranking.
 +
* '''Noindex robots meta tag''' is applied by default to filtered collection views in many Spiffy Stores themes, explicitly instructing search engines not to index these variant URLs. Check your theme's collection template to confirm whether ''noindex'' is set on filtered views.
 +
* '''The sitemap''' includes only the canonical collection pages, not filtered variants, so Google is not actively asked to index them.
 +
 +
== Robots.txt Rules for Faceted URLs ==
 +
As an additional safeguard against faceted URL explosion &mdash; and to prevent Google from wasting crawl budget on duplicate content that dilutes your search visibility &mdash; the following robots.txt rules are applied for all stores:
 +
 +
<pre>
 +
# Block duplicate product URLs reached through collection/tag paths
 +
Disallow: /collections/*/products/
 +
 +
# Block multi-tag/faceted collection combinations
 +
Disallow: /collections/*+
 +
 +
# Block query-string collection facets, sort orders, tracking params, etc.
 +
Disallow: /collections/*?*
 +
</pre>
 +
 +
'''What each rule blocks:'''
 +
 +
* '''/collections/*/products/''' &mdash; prevents Google from crawling product pages via their collection path URLs. Products should only be reached at their canonical ''/products/'' URL, not through intermediate collection paths.
 +
* '''/collections/*+''' &mdash; blocks multi-tag combinations (the "+" character is used by Spiffy Stores to join multiple tags in filtered collection URLs).
 +
* '''/collections/*?*''' &mdash; blocks all query-string variants of collection URLs, which covers sort order parameters, tracking parameters and any faceted filter combinations passed as URL parameters.
 +
 +
These rules are conservative and safe for all Spiffy Stores. They do not block access to the main collection pages themselves, only the duplicate filtered and variant URLs. Adding these rules ensures Google spends its crawl budget on unique, indexable pages rather than on variations that point back to the same canonical content.
  
 
== Frequently asked SEO questions  ==
 
== Frequently asked SEO questions  ==

Latest revision as of 11:08, 1 June 2026

If you have contracted an SEO professional to make modifications to your store, then this is the place you will need to point them to for information regarding creating custom meta tags for your store.

Built-in SEO Features

Spiffy Stores includes a range of SEO features that are enabled automatically out of the box. You do not need to install or configure anything to benefit from these:

Automatically Generated Sitemaps

Your store automatically generates a sitemap.xml file that is updated in real-time whenever pages, products or collections are published or unpublished. The sitemap includes all public-facing pages, product pages and collection pages, formatted according to the XML sitemap standard. This file is accessible at yourstore.com.au/sitemap.xml.

Because the sitemap is generated dynamically on each request, it always reflects the current state of your store without any need for manual regeneration or caching.

Robots.txt

A robots.txt file is automatically served for your store. By default, it allows all crawlers access to public content while blocking common crawler trap paths such as the cart, checkout, and account areas. You cannot edit the robots.txt file directly, but the defaults are chosen to maximise useful crawl budget while protecting sensitive areas.

AI-Generated SEO Meta Descriptions

Your Spiffy Store includes an AI-powered description generator that can create SEO metafields based on your product data. These generated texts are editable before saving, giving you full control over the final output. The feature is designed to reduce the time required to create and populate product pages while still allowing human review and refinement.

This ensures that every product page is optimized for search engines, improving click-through rates and organic reach without any manual effort.

Canonical URLs

All pages on your store automatically output a canonical URL tag in the <head> section. This helps search engines understand the preferred version of a page when multiple URLs can resolve to the same content (e.g., with or without trailing slashes, with default sorting parameters, etc.).

Structured Data / Schema.org

Product pages automatically include JSON-LD structured data in the page source, exposing product attributes such as name, description, price, availability and images in a format that Google can use for rich search results. This is rendered without any theme-level configuration.

Google Search Console Warnings and Errors

SEO professionals often import their Spiffy Stores site into Google Search Console (GSC) and immediately see crawl errors, coverage issues or warnings that can appear alarming at first glance. In most cases, these are not cause for concern on the Spiffy Stores platform, for the following reasons:

"Page not found" Errors for Internal Paths

Spiffy Stores uses a flexible URL routing system. URLs that do not match any published resource — such as old product handles, deprecated collection paths or internal paths that were never public — will return a 404 response. Googlebot will report these as crawl errors. Unless those URLs previously existed and were linked from external sites, they have no SEO impact. You can ignore these errors if the URLs in question are not known to have external links pointing to them.

Coverage Warnings for "Discovered — Currently Not Indexed"

Google may report pages as "Discovered — Currently Not Indexed" in the Coverage report. This is normal for pages that Googlebot found while crawling but chose not to index at that time. It does not indicate a problem with your site. Googlebot makes its own indexing decisions based on perceived content quality, crawl budget and signals — these decisions are outside your store's control. Running a site audit or making structural changes will not automatically resolve this state.

"Sitemap Could Not Be Read" Warnings

If your sitemap is hosted on Spiffy Stores and GSC reports it as unreadable, check whether you are using the correct canonical domain in GSC (www vs non-www, or HTTP vs HTTPS). Spiffy Stores automatically serves the correct protocol and www/non-www variant based on your store's primary domain setting. Ensure GSC is checked against the exact domain your store uses. Mismatches between the domain registered in GSC and the sitemap URL will cause this warning even when everything is working correctly.

"Core Web Vitals" Failures

Google's Page Experience signals (including Core Web Vitals) are reported per-URL in GSC. Spiffy Stores is responsible for server-side performance characteristics, while your theme and assets affect client-side metrics. If individual product or collection pages are flagged for poor Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) or Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), this is typically related to theme-level image optimisation, JavaScript bundle size or third-party app scripts — not platform-level infrastructure. Consider auditing your theme and any installed apps as the first step.

Manual Actions

If your store has received a manual action notification in GSC, this is a genuine issue that requires attention. Contact Spiffy Stores support with the GSC details so the platform team can investigate whether the action is platform-wide or store-specific.

Faceted Navigation and URL Explosions

One of the most common SEO concerns when auditing a Spiffy Stores site is the presence of a large number of URLs generated by filtering and sorting on collection pages. This section explains why these URLs exist and how they should be evaluated.

What Is Faceted Navigation?

Collection pages in Spiffy Stores include filtering by product tags, which allows shoppers to narrow down products by attributes such as colour, size, brand or material. Each combination of filters applied creates a unique URL. Additionally, the collection URL can accept query parameters for sorting or pagination. In most Spiffy Stores themes, these filter and sort options are implemented as URL parameters or path segments.

Why URL Counts Can Appear High

A collection with 10 filterable attributes, each with 3–5 options, can generate dozens of valid URL combinations. Multiply this across dozens of collections and the total number of crawlable URLs can appear very large — sometimes into the hundreds of thousands on stores with extensive tag use.

This is sometimes called an "explosive" faceted navigation problem. However, the actual SEO risk of these URLs on the Spiffy Stores platform is low, for the following reasons:

  • Canonical tags on all filtered views point to the unfiltered collection page, meaning Google treats all filtered variants as equivalent to the main collection page. The filtered URLs do not compete with each other or with the canonical page for indexing or ranking.
  • Noindex robots meta tag is applied by default to filtered collection views in many Spiffy Stores themes, explicitly instructing search engines not to index these variant URLs. Check your theme's collection template to confirm whether noindex is set on filtered views.
  • The sitemap includes only the canonical collection pages, not filtered variants, so Google is not actively asked to index them.

Robots.txt Rules for Faceted URLs

As an additional safeguard against faceted URL explosion — and to prevent Google from wasting crawl budget on duplicate content that dilutes your search visibility — the following robots.txt rules are applied for all stores: 

# Block duplicate product URLs reached through collection/tag paths
Disallow: /collections/*/products/

# Block multi-tag/faceted collection combinations
Disallow: /collections/*+

# Block query-string collection facets, sort orders, tracking params, etc.
Disallow: /collections/*?*

What each rule blocks:

  • /collections/*/products/ — prevents Google from crawling product pages via their collection path URLs. Products should only be reached at their canonical /products/ URL, not through intermediate collection paths.
  • /collections/*+ — blocks multi-tag combinations (the "+" character is used by Spiffy Stores to join multiple tags in filtered collection URLs).
  • /collections/*?* — blocks all query-string variants of collection URLs, which covers sort order parameters, tracking parameters and any faceted filter combinations passed as URL parameters.

These rules are conservative and safe for all Spiffy Stores. They do not block access to the main collection pages themselves, only the duplicate filtered and variant URLs. Adding these rules ensures Google spends its crawl budget on unique, indexable pages rather than on variations that point back to the same canonical content.

Frequently asked SEO questions

  1. Can I have FTP details for xxx.com?
    Stores cannot be accessed through FTP. You can edit the Theme files through the Toolbox in the "Design & assets -> Theme editor" section, or they can be edited using Webdav. Information about Webdav can be found here -> Using WebDAV to edit your theme
  2. What is my login?
    You'll need to contact the store owner and have them create a "Staff Login" for you using your email address.  This is done in the "Accounts -> Staff logins" section of the Toolbox.  You will definitely need to do this if you are located in a different country than the store owner, as you'll be locked out for security reasons.

    When the store owner creates a login for you, you'll be sent an email asking you to click a link that will allow you to create your own password to log in to the store.  Once you've done this, you can edit whatever you need to in order to make changes to the store.
  3. How can I edit the meta tags on a page?
    Every page, product, and collection allows you to edit the meta description and meta title of the page in the "Edit Search Engine Data" section. The keyword meta tag is generated automatically from the tags added to a product.
  4. How do I edit the sitemap.xml file?
    The sitemap file is automatically generated by the server based on the pages, products and collections that are set as "published".  It's created every time it is accessed so is generated in realtime.  For this reason it cannot be edited.
  5. How do I add a Google verification tag?
    From the Admin panel, go to "Preferences -> General Settings". In the "Site Verification" section, you can add an HTML Meta tag or a DNS TXT record.
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