E-commerce SEO Audit vs General SEO Audit: What's Different?
What an e-commerce audit checks that a general audit doesn't: the catalog, filters, variants, product data and checkout, and when each one fits.
- Updated
- 7 min read
By Szymon Kokot Published Updated 27 min read
E-commerce SEO Checklist (2026): 54 Checks for Online Stores
An e-commerce SEO checklist covers 54 checks in eight areas: technical SEO, on-page SEO, product and catalog SEO, keywords, competitors and shopping results, backlinks, trust and conversion, and AI search visibility. Most search problems in online stores are structural rather than cosmetic: the same product at four addresses, category pages with nothing but a product grid, filters that generate thousands of indexable pages, and products that vanish when they sell out. This checklist follows the same 54 points as the Illucrum E-commerce SEO Audit and works on any platform: Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce or custom.
In short: An e-commerce SEO audit checks whether search engines can crawl the catalog without drowning in duplicate and filter URLs, whether category and product pages are complete and original, how products appear in shopping results and AI answers, whether the store looks trustworthy to a first-time buyer, and whether the path from category to checkout works. All 54 checks run on free tools.
What does this e-commerce SEO checklist cover?
This e-commerce SEO checklist covers 54 checks in 8 sections. Section 3, product and catalog SEO, has no equivalent in a general website checklist, and it is usually where a store's largest problems sit. The e-commerce vs general SEO audit comparison sets out the differences.
| # | Section | Checks | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Technical SEO | 1 to 12 | Can search engines crawl the catalog without duplicates and index bloat? |
| 2 | On-page SEO | 13 to 20 | Do category and product templates say clearly what each page is? |
| 3 | Product and catalog SEO | 21 to 28 | Is the catalog structured, described and maintained for search? |
| 4 | Keyword strategy | 29 to 34 | Which category, product and long-tail searches does the store reach? |
| 5 | Competitors and search results | 35 to 37 | How does the store compare with competing stores and shopping results? |
| 6 | Backlink profile | 38 to 42 | Which sites link to the store, and how healthy do the links look? |
| 7 | UX, trust and conversion | 43 to 48 | Can a first-time shopper find a product, trust the store and buy? |
| 8 | AI search visibility | 49 to 54 | Do AI shopping answers include or cite the store? |
What do you need before you start?
You need verified Google Search Console access, Google Merchant Center access if the store uses it, and a handful of free tools. Only a site-wide crawl may need a desktop crawler, and its free tier covers small stores.
| Tool | Used for | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Queries, indexing, crawl stats, links, manual actions | Free, needs a verified site |
| Google Merchant Center | Product feed status and disapprovals | Free, needs account access |
| PageSpeed Insights | Speed and Core Web Vitals on category and product pages | Free |
| Illucrum Bulk SEO Checker | Titles, descriptions, headings, canonicals, images, links and schema for up to 25 URLs, as CSV | Free, no account |
| Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator | Product, offer, review and breadcrumb markup | Free |
| Chrome DevTools and view-source | Canonicals, rendering, redirects, mobile view | Free |
| A desktop crawler such as Screaming Frog | Site-wide redirects, broken links and URL counts on larger catalogs | Free up to 500 URLs |
| A backlink tool | Referring domains for the store and competitors | Free tiers exist; use one tool for every domain |
Before the first check, open a spreadsheet with four columns (check number, finding, evidence, severity). Then pick a sample and keep it: the homepage, your three biggest category pages, five to ten product pages (including one with variants and one out of stock) and one buying guide if you have one. Auditing every product on a 4,000-product store is neither useful nor necessary, because most store problems live in templates. Set Search Console to the last three months and keep that range for every check.
Section 1: How do you check technical SEO on an online store? (checks 1 to 12)
Technical SEO checks on an online store establish whether search engines can crawl and index the catalog, and whether they spend their time on real products and categories or on the duplicate and filter URLs store platforms generate at scale.
1. Page speed (mobile and desktop)
Run the homepage, your top category page and a top product page through PageSpeed Insights for mobile and desktop and record all six Performance scores. Product pages are usually the slowest, because of large images, review widgets and app scripts.
Good result: a mobile Performance score of 90 or above on category and product templates.
Record: the six scores and the top three opportunities for each template.
2. Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS)
Core Web Vitals are Google's measures of loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and visual stability (CLS). Record them from the field data in each PageSpeed report and from the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console. Stores with little traffic often have no field data; use the lab data and note it.
Good result: LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS of 0.1 or less on category and product pages.
Record: the three values per template, field or lab, and URL groups marked Poor.
3. HTTPS and SSL certificate
Confirm every page, including cart, checkout and account pages, loads over HTTPS, and that http:// redirects to https:// in one hop. Check the certificate's expiry date and grade in SSL Labs, and watch the DevTools Console for mixed content, which product images from old uploads often cause.
Good result: HTTPS everywhere, a valid certificate with grade A or A+, and no mixed content.
Record: redirect behavior, certificate expiry, SSL Labs grade and any mixed content URLs.
4. Mobile usability
Open a category page and a product page on a real phone, not only in DevTools. Check the image gallery swipes, size and color selectors are easy to tap, the add-to-cart button is reachable, and category filters open, apply and close properly on touch.
Good result: browsing, filtering and buying all work on a phone without zooming.
Record: each template's state, with screenshots of anything broken.
5. XML sitemap and robots.txt
Open /sitemap.xml and /robots.txt directly. Record the sitemap's URL count and whether it is split by type (products, categories, pages, blog). Paste a sample of product and category URLs from it into the Bulk SEO Checker to confirm they return 200 and are canonical. In robots.txt, confirm no product or category path is disallowed, and note the rules for cart, checkout, search and filter URLs.
Good result: a sitemap listing only live, canonical products and categories, and robots.txt that blocks nothing a shopper should find.
Record: sitemap URL counts by type, failing sample URLs, and every robots.txt rule touching catalog paths.
6. Canonical tags and duplicate product URLs
A canonical tag tells search engines which address is the main version of a page. Find a product that belongs to more than one category and open it through each path, for example /products/item and /collections/shoes/products/item on Shopify. Record the canonical each version returns, and check which version your category pages link to. This single check catches the most common duplication problem in e-commerce.
Good result: every path to a product carries the same canonical, and internal links point to that canonical URL.
Record: the paths tested, the canonical each returns, and the URL category pages link to.
7. URL structure and hierarchy
Review a spread of category and product URLs. Check they are readable, lowercase and hyphenated, that categories don't use numeric IDs where a word would do, and that the pattern is consistent. Some platforms fix the structure (Shopify always uses /products/ and /collections/); that is fine, as long as the parts you control are clean.
Good result: readable, consistent category and product URLs.
Record: the pattern per page type, and URLs with IDs, parameters or inconsistencies.
8. Product structured data
Product structured data describes a product's name, image, price, availability and reviews in code search engines read, and it is what makes a product eligible for rich results and free shopping listings. Run three or four product pages through the Rich Results Test and record the fields present: name, image, brand, sku or gtin, and offers with price, priceCurrency and availability, plus aggregateRating if you show reviews. Record errors separately from warnings.
Good result: valid Product markup with offers, identifiers and availability on every product template.
Record: the fields present and missing, errors and warnings, per product template.
9. Pagination and infinite scroll
Open a category with more products than fit on one page and view the raw page source. Check the links to page two and beyond are ordinary <a href> links. If products load through infinite scroll or a "Load more" button with no page links behind it, search engines may never reach products past the first page. Google no longer uses rel="next" and rel="prev", so the links themselves have to be crawlable.
Good result: every product in a category reachable through plain, crawlable page links.
Record: how pagination works per category template and whether page two and beyond are linked in the HTML.
10. Tag and filter page indexing
Click a filter or tag on a category page and check whether the URL changes. If it does, search site:yourdomain.com with that URL pattern and record how many such pages are indexed. Open one and check for noindex or a canonical back to the parent category. A store with 20 categories and 10 tags each can generate 200 near-identical pages competing with its real categories.
Good result: filter and tag URLs kept out of the index, except combinations deliberately built to rank.
Record: the URL patterns, indexed counts and how each pattern is handled.
11. Redirects and broken links
Catalog changes leave broken links and redirect chains behind. On a small store, paste the internal link targets from the Bulk SEO Checker's Links table back into it; on a larger one, run a desktop crawler. Record internal links returning 4xx or 5xx, the longest redirect chain and any loops. Check that products removed from the catalog redirect somewhere relevant rather than all to the homepage.
Good result: no broken internal links, no chains or loops, and relevant redirects for removed products.
Record: broken links with the pages they sit on, chains with their steps, and how removed products are handled.
12. Index coverage and bloat
Index bloat is when a store has far more indexed pages than real products and categories. In Search Console, open Indexing, then Pages, and record the indexed and not indexed counts and the reasons. Compare the indexed count with your real number of products plus categories. Then open Settings, Crawl stats, to see what Googlebot spends its requests on.
Good result: an indexed count close to the real catalog, and exclusions that are intentional.
Record: indexed count against real catalog size, the reason breakdown, and the main types of unwanted indexed URLs.
Section 2: How do you check on-page SEO for category and product pages? (checks 13 to 20)
On-page SEO checks on a store run at template level. On a catalog of thousands of products you look at patterns in an export, not at single pages, and one template fix usually repairs hundreds of pages at once.
13. Title tags
From the Bulk SEO Checker export of your sample, record missing, duplicate, overlong and very short titles. Sort duplicates to see whether a template produces them. Product titles should lead with the product name and its key attribute; category titles with the category as shoppers search it ("Women's trail running shoes"), with the brand last.
Good result: unique titles of about 50 to 60 characters that match how shoppers search.
Record: counts of missing, duplicate and overlong titles, and the title pattern of each template.
14. Meta descriptions
Record missing and duplicate descriptions, and check whether product descriptions are written or pulled automatically from the first line of body copy. A description doesn't affect rankings, but on category and top product pages it works as ad copy: price range, delivery, returns, range size.
Good result: unique descriptions on categories and top products that give a reason to click.
Record: missing and duplicate counts and the pattern each template uses.
15. Heading structure (H1 to H3)
Check each template has one H1: the product name on product pages, the category name on category pages. Use the Headings table of the Bulk SEO Checker to spot themes that wrap the logo or the store name in an H1 on every page, or leave the product name as styled text.
Good result: exactly one H1 per page, naming the product or category.
Record: templates with no H1, several H1s or the wrong text in the H1.
16. Image optimization and alt text
The Images table of the Bulk SEO Checker lists every image with its alt text and separates missing alt attributes from empty ones. Check product photos are described ("black leather ankle boot, side view"), not labeled with file names ("IMG_3421"). In PageSpeed, note oversized images and whether modern formats such as WebP or AVIF are served.
Good result: descriptive alt text on product and category images, sized and compressed to load quickly.
Record: images missing alt text, file-name alt text, and PageSpeed image savings.
17. Internal linking
Check the homepage links to the main categories, categories link to subcategories and products, and buying guides link to the products and categories they discuss. The Links table of the Bulk SEO Checker lists every link with its anchor text for the pages you paste. Products reachable only through search or filters are close to invisible to crawlers.
Good result: every category reachable from the menu, and guides linking into the catalog.
Record: links from the homepage to categories, links from guides to products, and products that are hard to reach.
18. Category page content
Record the amount of useful text on your top five category pages outside the product grid: an introduction, buying advice, sizing or material notes, FAQs. Many stores have none, which leaves the page with nothing to rank on beyond product names. The text should help a shopper choose, not repeat keywords.
Good result: a short, useful introduction or guidance on each main category page.
Record: per category, the word count outside the grid and what that text does.
19. Category content vs competitors
Search your three most important category terms. For the top three ranking pages, record what they offer beyond products: buying guides, comparison tables, FAQs, filters by use, video. Compare with your own category page for the same term.
Good result: your category pages offer shoppers as much guidance as the pages that outrank them.
Record: per term, what the top pages include and what yours lacks.
20. Open Graph and social previews
Open Graph tags control how a page looks when shared on social platforms and in messaging apps. The Bulk SEO Checker export includes every og: tag. Check product pages have og:title, og:description, og:image and og:url, and that og:image shows the main product photo rather than the logo.
Good result: complete tags, with the product photo as the preview image.
Record: missing tags per template and pages whose preview image is wrong.
If pulling all of this on a large catalog is more work than you want to take on, the E-commerce SEO Audit covers the same 54 points and ends in a scored report with the fixes in order.
Section 3: How do you check product and catalog SEO? (checks 21 to 28)
Product and catalog SEO checks look at how the catalog itself is structured, described and maintained for search. These checks have no equivalent in a general website audit.
21. Product page fundamentals
Take ten sample products and record, in one table: title, meta description, H1, canonical, description length, price, availability, number of images and whether Product markup is present. Reviewing them together makes template failures obvious, such as every product sharing a description or no product showing availability.
Good result: every product page has all the basics in place together.
Record: the table, with the fields that fail across several products highlighted.
22. Product description depth
For the same ten products, record the description length. Then copy one distinctive sentence from each, search it in Google inside quotation marks, and count how many other sites use the identical text. A description shared with 30 other stores gives none of them a reason to rank; one that answers shoppers' questions (fit, materials, care, use) gives yours one.
Good result: original descriptions that answer the questions shoppers ask before buying.
Record: per product, description length and how many other sites share the text.
23. Category architecture
Map the category tree from the menu and breadcrumbs. Record how many levels deep it goes, whether every main category is reachable from the menu, and whether subcategories are real pages or only filters. Check the categories match how shoppers search: "running shoes" before "Collection Spring 26".
Good result: a logical tree, no more than three or four levels deep, named the way shoppers search.
Record: the tree, its depth, and categories that exist only as filters.
24. Product variants
Variants are the sizes, colors and other options of one product. Click through each variant of a sample product and record whether the URL changes, whether the canonical changes with it, and whether each variant has its own image and alt text. Variants should neither create dozens of duplicate pages nor hide searchable options such as a popular color. Google supports variant markup (ProductGroup with hasVariant) for stores that list variants on separate URLs.
Good result: a deliberate variant setup, with no duplicate variant pages indexed by accident.
Record: how variant URLs and canonicals behave, and whether variant markup is used.
25. Out-of-stock and discontinued products
Find an out-of-stock product and record its status code, what the page says and whether it offers a back-in-stock notice or alternatives. A product that is temporarily unavailable should normally keep its page, with availability shown in the markup. Then find a discontinued product and record whether its URL returns a 404, redirects to a close replacement or its category, or still loads with nothing to buy.
Good result: temporarily unavailable products keep their page; discontinued ones redirect to a close replacement or return a clean 404.
Record: status code and handling for each case, and what the markup says about availability.
26. Faceted navigation strategy
Faceted navigation is the set of filters for brand, size, color and price on category pages. Count the filter types and options on your largest category, apply two filters at once, and record whether the resulting URL is crawlable and indexable. Check whether some filter combinations have real search demand ("men's waterproof hiking boots") and deserve an indexable page of their own. Google's guide to faceted navigation describes the options.
Good result: filters that help shoppers without creating crawlable duplicates, with valuable combinations turned into proper pages.
Record: filter types, how combined filters behave, and the handling applied.
27. Product image SEO
Beyond alt text, check product image file names ("black-leather-ankle-boot.jpg" rather than "IMG_0042.jpg"), how many angles each main product has, image quality, and whether the markup's image field points to the main photo. Image search is a real route to products in many categories.
Good result: descriptive file names, several good images per main product and the main photo in the markup.
Record: file-name patterns, images per product and the markup image field.
28. Reviews on product pages
Compare the raw source of a product page with what you see in the browser, or paste it into the Bulk SEO Checker, and record whether review text is in the HTML or only loads from a third-party widget. Record the review count and average rating of your top products and whether aggregateRating markup is present and matches what is shown.
Good result: reviews visible on product pages, readable in the HTML and matching the markup.
Record: how reviews load, review counts and ratings for top products, and the state of the rating markup.
Section 4: How do you check keyword strategy for a store? (checks 29 to 34)
Keyword checks show which category, product and long-tail searches the store reaches today and which it could reach. Use the last three months of Search Console data, under Performance, Search results.
29. Ranking keywords overview
Sort queries by impressions and record the top 20 with clicks, position and CTR. Tag each one as branded, category, product or informational. This shows at a glance whether search brings shoppers looking for what you sell, or mostly people who already know the store.
Good result: many category and product queries among the top 20, not only branded ones.
Record: the top 20 with tags, and the count per type.
30. Category and product keyword coverage
List your five to ten core categories and search each the way a shopper would, in a private window. Record whether the store appears in the top 20 and which page ranks. The right result is the category page; a random product or the homepage ranking instead is a finding.
Good result: each core category page ranks for its main search.
Record: per category, your position and the page that ranks.
31. Long-tail and modifier coverage
Long-tail searches combine a product with a modifier: a brand, material, use, audience or price ("vegan leather backpack for laptop"). For each core category, record Google's autocomplete suggestions and "People also ask" questions, note the modifier types that recur, and check whether you have a page or filter page for each pattern.
Good result: pages that match the most common modifier patterns in your categories.
Record: modifier types per category and whether a page targets each.
32. Striking-distance queries (positions 4 to 20)
Filter Performance to an average position greater than 3 and less than 21, and sort by impressions. These queries already rank close to the top; improving the page that ranks for each is usually the most efficient work available. Record the page that ranks for each one.
Good result: few valuable queries left stuck just below the top three.
Record: the striking-distance list with position, impressions and ranking page.
33. Keyword gap vs competitors
Using the competing stores you identify in check 35, search your core category and product terms and record where they rank and you don't. Group the gaps by category and page type rather than single keywords. Marketplaces such as Amazon may rank too; note them, but compare yourself with stores like yours.
Good result: no major category or product type where competing stores rank and you have no page.
Record: the gap list by category, with the competitor page that ranks.
34. Branded vs non-branded split
Filter queries with a regular expression matching your store name and its misspellings, record the clicks, then invert the filter. A store whose search clicks are mostly branded is being found by returning customers, not new ones.
Good result: more than half of search clicks from non-branded queries.
Record: branded clicks, non-branded clicks and the split.
Section 5: How do you check competitors and shopping results? (checks 35 to 37)
Competitor checks compare the store with the competing stores that win its searches, and check whether its products appear in the shopping features around the regular results. Search your core category terms in a private window and note the three stores that appear most often; list marketplaces separately.
35. Authority comparison
Record a third-party authority score and referring domain count for your store and the three competing stores, from the same tool on the same day. Leave marketplaces out of the benchmark: no independent store should measure itself against Amazon's authority.
Good result: within reach of the strongest competing store on the same scale.
Record: each score and referring domain count, the tool and date.
36. Shopping results and search features
For your ten most important commercial terms, record which features appear: product listings (free and paid), image results, "People also ask", AI Overviews. Record whether your products appear in any of them, and which competitors do. Free product listings depend on a product feed in Google Merchant Center or on complete product markup.
Good result: your products appear in the shopping features for your main terms.
Record: per term, the features shown and whether you appear.
37. Content gap vs competitors
Record the content competing stores publish that you don't: buying guides, "best X for Y" roundups, comparisons, size and care guides, videos. These pages capture shoppers earlier in their research than any product page can.
Good result: guides and comparisons for your main categories, at least on par with competitors.
Record: the content types competitors have and you lack, with examples.
Section 6: How do you check the backlink profile? (checks 38 to 42)
Backlink checks look at the links from other websites to the store, recorded as a snapshot with today's date. Search Console's Links report is a sample with no history, so the figures work as a baseline for later comparison.
38. Referring domains and link diversity
In Search Console, open Links and read the top linking sites. For a store, healthy sources include press coverage, gift guides, bloggers who reviewed products, suppliers and brand directories. Record the share of links from the top five domains.
Good result: links from a spread of real, relevant sites, with no single source dominating.
Record: the number of linking sites, the top 20 with a note on each and the top-five share.
39. Link quality and unnatural patterns
Check Security and Manual actions in Search Console first. Then scan the linking sites for signs of built or bought links: exact-match product anchors from unrelated blogs, networks of similar sites. Random spam you didn't create is normal and Google ignores most of it; a disavow file is only worth it for a large artificial pattern.
Good result: no manual action and no sign of built or bought links.
Record: manual action status and any suspicious pattern, with examples.
40. Anchor text distribution
Open Links, then Top linking text, and sort anchors into branded, bare URL, generic and exact-match commercial. A store's earned links mostly use its name or product names in context.
Good result: mostly branded and URL anchors.
Record: the approximate share of each group.
41. Backlinked pages and broken link targets
Open Links, then Top linked pages, and paste the URLs into the Bulk SEO Checker. Stores lose links through discontinued products, old collections and expired sale pages. Every linked URL that now errors, or redirects to the homepage instead of its closest equivalent, is wasting links a 301 could recover.
Good result: every linked URL loads or redirects once to a relevant page.
Record: broken or poorly redirected linked URLs and how many sites link to each.
42. Competitor link gap
Run the store and the competing stores through the same backlink tool on the same day. List domains that link to two or more competitors but not to you: gift guides, review roundups, niche blogs and supplier pages are typical.
Good result: referring domains within about 20% of the median competing store.
Record: referring domains per store, the tool and date, and the gap list by type.
Section 7: How do you check UX, trust and conversion? (checks 43 to 48)
UX, trust and conversion checks establish whether a shopper who arrives from search can find what they want, trust the store and buy. Search visitors often know nothing about the store, so trust carries extra weight.
43. Navigation and site search
Record the number of top-level menu items, whether the search bar is visible without scrolling on a phone, whether site search handles misspellings and synonyms, and whether breadcrumbs appear on product pages. Check the menu matches the category tree from check 23.
Good result: a clear menu, visible and forgiving site search, and breadcrumbs on products.
Record: menu size, search behavior on three test queries, and breadcrumb presence.
44. Cart and checkout indexing
Open the cart, checkout and account pages and check each carries noindex or is blocked from crawling. Search site:yourdomain.com with the cart and checkout paths to count indexed ones. Note whether checkout moves to another domain.
Good result: no cart, checkout or account pages in search results.
Record: the directive on each page and the number indexed.
45. Trust signals and social proof
On a product page, record which trust signals are visible: reviews and ratings, payment method icons, a third-party review profile, secure checkout information, and a way to contact a person that isn't only a form. Shoppers arriving from search judge the store on these before they judge the product.
Good result: reviews and several recognizable trust signals near the add-to-cart button.
Record: the signals present and those missing.
46. Store policies and business details
Check that shipping costs, delivery times, the returns policy, contact details and the business behind the store (legal name, address) are clear and one click from any product page. Google can show shipping and return details in results when they are provided through Merchant Center or structured data, so check whether they are.
Good result: shipping, returns and business details easy to find, and provided to Google where possible.
Record: where each policy is, how many clicks away it is, and whether it is provided to Google.
47. Product page layout
On a phone, record whether the price, availability, options and add-to-cart button are visible without scrolling, and how far down the page the description starts. On desktop, check the same with the image gallery beside the buying options.
Good result: price, availability, options and add to cart visible on first view, on both phone and desktop.
Record: what is visible without scrolling on each device.
48. Purchase path coherence
Walk the full path yourself: a Google result, a category page, a product page, the cart and checkout. Record the number of clicks, the number of checkout fields, whether guest checkout exists, and any point where the next step is unclear or a cost appears that wasn't mentioned before.
Good result: a short path with guest checkout and no surprise costs.
Record: clicks, checkout fields, guest checkout, and where the path breaks.
Section 8: How do you check AI search visibility for a store? (checks 49 to 54)
AI search visibility checks measure whether AI shopping answers include or cite the store. These answers run on product data, reviews and buying guides, so they reward the same work as the sections above. Run every test logged out or in a temporary chat, and record the date.
49. AI Overviews and AI shopping answers
Search four to six high-intent queries in a private window: your top categories, "best [product] for [use]" and your flagship product names. Record whether an AI Overview appears, which sources and products it cites, and whether your store is among them.
Good result: your store or products appear in AI answers for several key queries.
Record: per query, whether an AI answer appears, what it cites and whether you are included.
50. AI assistant product recommendations
Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini the same category and use-case shopping questions. Record whether your store or products are recommended, which competitors are, and which sources each assistant cites. The cited sources matter more than the recommendation, because they show what would need to change.
Good result: recommended by at least one assistant for your core categories.
Record: per assistant and question, the recommendations and cited sources.
51. Product data consistency (page, markup, feed)
Compare the price, availability and product details of five products across three places: the product page, its markup and your Merchant Center feed. AI shopping answers and Google's shopping features draw on the markup and the feed, so a mismatch shows shoppers the wrong price or stock status, and can get products disapproved in Merchant Center.
Good result: identical price, availability and identifiers on the page, in the markup and in the feed.
Record: each mismatch found, and the number of disapproved items in Merchant Center.
52. Review and rating signals
For your top five products, record the review count, the date of the latest review and the average rating, and do the same for the equivalent products of competing stores. Note whether you have a store-level review profile (such as Google Customer Reviews or Trustpilot). AI answers lean on review volume and recency when recommending products.
Good result: review counts and recency close to competitors on your key products.
Record: the review figures for you and each competitor.
53. Buying guides and comparison content
Check whether the store publishes "best [product] for [use]" guides, "[A] vs [B]" comparisons, size guides or gift guides. For any that exist, check the recommendation appears in the first 100 words, comparisons sit in a real HTML table, and each guide links to the products it recommends.
Good result: guides for the main categories that answer early and link to products.
Record: guides that exist, where the answer sits in each, and the categories with no guide.
54. AI crawler access
Check robots.txt for the three classes of AI crawler: retrieval (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Bingbot), user-triggered (ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User) and training (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, CCBot). Retrieval and user-triggered access decide whether assistants can read and cite the store; blocking training crawlers is a separate choice. Platform defaults and bot-protection apps sometimes block AI crawlers without anyone deciding to, so check what your platform or CDN does too.
Good result: retrieval and user-triggered crawlers allowed, and a deliberate choice about training crawlers.
Record: the rule for each crawler and whether each was intended.
Frequently asked questions
How long does an e-commerce SEO audit take to do yourself?
A first pass through this e-commerce SEO checklist takes four to eight hours for a store with a few hundred products, with Search Console access and the free tools above. Larger catalogs take longer, mainly because filters and variants take time to map and exports get large. Crawls can run in the background while you work on other checks.
Which e-commerce SEO checks matter most for Shopify stores?
On Shopify, start with checks 6, 10 and 24. Shopify serves each product at both /products/ and /collections/.../products/ paths, can generate indexable tag pages within collections, and handles variants differently depending on the theme. Check 23 matters too, because Shopify has no true parent and child collections. The Shopify SEO article covers these in more detail.
Do I need paid tools to audit an online store?
No. Every check in this e-commerce SEO checklist runs on Search Console, Merchant Center, PageSpeed Insights, the Rich Results Test, the Illucrum Bulk SEO Checker and a browser. A desktop crawler makes site-wide checks faster on large catalogs, and its free tier covers up to 500 URLs.
How often should an online store be audited?
Audit an online store fully once a year, and again after any platform migration, theme change or large catalog restructure. The index and technical checks are worth a quarterly look, because they drift as products are added and removed.
Gathering the data is the part most stores skip, and it is the part that makes every later decision simpler. Work through the 54 checks, record the results in one place, and the priorities tend to show themselves. If you'd rather have them gathered, scored and put in order for you, the E-commerce SEO Audit covers the same 54 points at a fixed price listed on the pricing page.