Lesson

Crawl and index

17 min read

Introduction

Crawl and index is a core piece of Technical SEO for Shopify. This lesson explains what it is, why it matters for Shopify merchants, and how to approach it without wasting effort.

Key concepts

  • What crawl and index actually means for a Shopify store
  • How crawl and index connects to revenue, not vanity metrics
  • The signals merchants can measure this week
  • Where crawl and index fits in the Orbit Growth OS

Examples

  • A scaling apparel brand fixing crawl and index on their top 10 pages
  • A home goods merchant using crawl and index to unlock repeat purchases

Best practices

  • Start with evidence — audit before you change crawl and index
  • Prioritize the highest-traffic surfaces first
  • Document decisions so the team can repeat them
  • Measure the outcome, not just the output

Common mistakes

  • Copying tactics from stores that look nothing like yours
  • Optimizing crawl and index without a baseline metric
  • Changing too many variables at once

Summary

Crawl and index is a foundation, not a finish line. Treat crawl and index as an ongoing practice and connect every change to a metric you already trust.

Related resources

Suggested next lesson

Site structure signals

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