Shopify Sitemap: Where It Is, What It Lists and How to Fix It
Where is my Shopify sitemap? At https://yourstore.com/sitemap.xml. Shopify creates it automatically, keeps it up to date, and lists it in your robots.txt. You can’t edit the file, but you can control what goes into it, for example by hiding a page with the seo.hidden metafield or by unpublishing a product.
What Shopify Puts in the Sitemap
/sitemap.xml is an index that points to one sitemap per type of content. When we read the sitemap of a live Shopify store (allbirds.com) on September 25, 2026, the index listed:
sitemap_products_1.xml: product pages, each with its image, and no variant URLs (?variant=).sitemap_collections_1.xml,sitemap_pages_1.xmlandsitemap_blogs_1.xml: collections, pages and blog content.sitemap_metaobject_pages_1.xml: pages built from metaobjects.sitemap_agentic_discovery.xml: a small sitemap pointing to an/agents.mdfile intended for AI agents.
Policy pages were not in that store’s pages sitemap, and paginated collection URLs (?page=2) are not listed. Large catalogs get more than one products file. Submit only the index; search engines follow it to the rest.
Submit Your Shopify Sitemap to Google and Bing
- In Google Search Console, add and verify your custom domain (not the
myshopify.comaddress). - Open Sitemaps, enter
sitemap.xmland click Submit. - In Bing Webmaster Tools, submit
https://yourstore.com/sitemap.xmlunder Sitemaps, or import the site from Search Console.
How to Keep a Page Out of the Sitemap
Use the seo.hidden metafield. According to Shopify’s help center, setting a metafield named seo.hidden to 1 on a product, page or blog post hides it from sitemaps, search engines and your store’s own search. Create the definition once under Settings → Metafields and metaobjects (namespace and key seo.hidden, integer, maximum 1), then set it on each item. The bulk editor can set it on many products at once. Afterwards, check the page source for a noindex tag.
Unpublish or set to draft anything that shouldn’t be on the store at all. Products that aren’t published to the online store aren’t listed.
Keep noindex and the sitemap in agreement. Some apps add a noindex tag, for example to out-of-stock products, but the product stays published and so stays in the sitemap. That sends Google two opposite signals. If an app adds noindex, make sure it also hides the product from the sitemap, or use seo.hidden instead.
Common Shopify Sitemap Problems
Duplicate product URLs through collections
A product can be reached at /products/blue-widget and at /collections/widgets/products/blue-widget. The sitemap lists only the /products/ version, and Shopify’s canonical tag points there, but if your theme links to the collection version, Google keeps finding duplicates. In your Liquid templates, the within: collection filter is what creates those links; use plain product.url wherever the collection path isn’t needed.
Out-of-stock products
Published products stay in the sitemap whether or not they are in stock. Pick one approach and apply it everywhere: keep temporarily unavailable products live and indexable with a back-in-stock option, and unpublish (or redirect to the closest alternative) products that are gone for good. Avoid apps that redirect or noindex products while leaving them in the sitemap.
Paginated collection pages
Shopify’s own sitemap leaves ?page= URLs out; if you see them, an app’s extra sitemap is probably adding them, so check every sitemap listed in your robots.txt. Don’t fix pagination by pointing page 2 and beyond at page 1 with a canonical tag: Google’s guidance is to give each page in a paginated series its own canonical URL.
The store is password-protected
While the storefront password is on (Online Store → Preferences), crawlers can’t get past it, so nothing gets indexed. Turn it off before you submit the sitemap.
The myshopify.com address shows up
Make your custom domain the primary domain so visitors and crawlers land on one version, and use that domain everywhere in Search Console.
International stores
With Shopify Markets, localized versions live on subfolders or separate domains. Check a few product pages with view-source: each version should list the others with hreflang tags, plus an x-default. See multilingual sitemaps for how the pieces fit together.
Pages made by apps are missing
Some apps create pages that don’t come from Shopify’s own products, collections, pages or blogs, and those may not appear in the sitemap. Check whether the app adds its pages to the sitemap or offers its own; if not, link to the pages from your navigation so crawlers can find them.
Blocking Crawl Waste With robots.txt
Shopify lets you customize robots.txt through a robots.txt.liquid theme template. Keep Shopify’s default rules and add only what you need, such as blocking sort and filter parameters that create endless near-duplicate URLs. After any change, open /robots.txt and confirm the Sitemap: line is still there.
# What to check in the live file https://yourstore.com/robots.txt -> Sitemap: https://yourstore.com/sitemap.xml
A Quick Monthly Check
- Open
/sitemap.xmland each child sitemap; note the URL counts. - Spot-check product URLs: they should return 200, point their canonical at themselves, and carry no noindex tag from an app.
- Look for
?page=or?variant=URLs in any sitemap your robots.txt lists. - Review Search Console’s page indexing report for new redirect or noindex errors on sitemap URLs.
For an outside check, the free sitemap finder reads your robots.txt, loads the sitemap, and tests 30 of its URLs for 404s, redirects, noindex tags and canonical problems.