Why is my Shopify store not listed on Google?
If you're starting a new store, you may wonder " Why can't I find my store on Google?".
To appear on Google, Google will read your website content and put it into its index. When you're just starting a new store, Google can hardly find it since there is no linkage with other websites. Your store is like an isolated island on the ocean. You have to notify Google there is a new website out there.
How can I solve it?
There are several solutions:
- Publish your store to the public
Remove the password on your store so that it's open to the public. Otherwise, no one else is going to visit your store, including all search engines. - Submit sitemap to Google
Sitemap is the file to describe the pages included in your website. When you submit your sitemap to Google, Google will read your website and put it into the index. In general, it takes 1 - 3 weeks for Google to finish it. You can visit Google Search Console to claim your site and submit your sitemap. In SPO, we also provide a function to notify google for updating your sitemap. Please refer to our guide here: How can I update sitemap.xml? - Request recrawling
If you just want to update a page on Google, you can use URL inspection tool in Google Search Console to request recrawling. Just fill in your URL on the top search box. Hit Enter and Click "Request Indexing" and you are done. It will take 1 - 2 weeks for recrawling. - Create more links to your store
To speed up the process, you can generate more links to help Google find your site. The easiest way is to create social media profiles (Facebook Page, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, Google My Business, etc) and add your store URL to the profile. The links will also generate more SEO juice in the long run. With more links, it can speed up the process to within a week.
