Updated
On a Shopify store, many URLs in this report are there on purpose. Shopify sends noindex on its Web Pixels Manager sandbox URLs, and a product, page or blog post someone hid with the seo.hidden metafield carries a noindex,nofollow tag. Leave those. Fix only the entries that are real products, collections, pages or posts you want in Google.
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Step 1: sort the list
Open Indexing > Pages > Excluded by 'noindex' tag in Search Console and go through the example URLs.
| URL looks like | What it is | What to do |
|---|---|---|
Contains web-pixels-manager or wpm | The sandbox iframe Shopify uses to run tracking pixels. In 2023 Google started indexing these URLs. Shopify's fix: they now return 404 or send noindex in an X-Robots-Tag header. | Leave them. Shopify says they clear from the report over a few months and don't hurt crawling or rankings. |
| A product, page or blog post you hid on purpose | Hidden with the seo.hidden metafield (see step 2). | Nothing. Shopify's own guide says this is expected. |
| A product, collection, page or post that should rank | A real problem. | Check it, then find the source in step 2. |
Don't block the pixel URLs, or any other noindexed URL, in robots.txt. Shopify's FAQ warns that a Disallow rule stops Google from seeing the noindex header, and the URLs move to the 'Blocked by robots.txt' report instead.
Step 2: find where the noindex comes from
Run one affected URL through the checker above. It reads the raw HTML and the response headers, the way Googlebot fetches them. Then check these, in this order:
| Source | How to check |
|---|---|
seo.hidden metafield | When an item's seo.hidden metafield is 1, Shopify adds noindex and nofollow to its page and removes it from the sitemap. In the admin, look under Settings > Metafields and metaobjects for a definition with namespace and key seo.hidden on Products, Pages or Blog posts. If one exists, open the affected item and look at that field in its Metafields section. |
| Theme code | Search the theme code (Online Store > Themes > Edit code) for noindex, starting with layout/theme.liquid and snippets included in the head. A condition such as a template name or tag can apply it to more pages than intended. |
| Apps | Some SEO and filter apps add noindex to collection or filtered pages through settings or app embeds. If the tag isn't in the theme files, check your apps' settings or turn off app embeds one at a time and check the URL again. |
| Response header | A noindex that doesn't appear in the page source can come from an X-Robots-Tag header. The X-Robots-Tag checker lists the headers on every redirect hop. |
Step 3: clear it
- Metafield: clear the
seo.hiddenvalue on the item and save. Through the Admin API, deleting the metafield removes the tags. The item goes back into the sitemap. - Theme or app: remove the tag or change the setting, then run the URL through the checker again to confirm the tag and header are gone.
- Ask Google to recrawl: in Search Console, run URL Inspection with Test live URL, then Request indexing for the key URLs. In the Page indexing report, click Validate fix. Pages come back as Google recrawls them.
For the general version of this report, outside Shopify, read Excluded by 'noindex' tag: how to find and fix it.
Hear about it the day it happens
A bulk edit, a theme update or a new app can put noindex on your best sellers without anything changing in the admin. NoindexWatch checks the home page and the product and collection URLs you choose for noindex in meta tags and headers, robots.txt blocks, canonicals and sitemap drops, and tells you by email, Slack or Discord when something changes. The free plan covers 1 site (one store) with up to 20 URLs, checked daily, no card.
Sources: Shopify developer documentation on optimizing storefront SEO (the seo.hidden metafield), Shopify's guide to noindexing a Shopify page, the Shopify staff FAQ on Web Pixels Manager sandbox URLs, and Google Search Central documentation on robots meta tags and the Page indexing report. Related: Blocked by robots.txt (has a Shopify section) ยท Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt.