A new Shopify website’s first indexing time usually ranges from 3 days to 4 weeks. For websites manually submitted through Google Search Console, the average inclusion time can be shortened to 24-72 hours, while unsubmitted sites might wait over 2 weeks.

Shopify’s default sitemap.xml structure (usually located at /sitemap.xml) helps Google crawl more efficiently. If your website is still not indexed after 7 days, it’s likely due to robots.txt blocking, server errors, or low-quality content.

Google’s Basic Indexing Process

When you publish a new website on Shopify, Google won’t display your pages immediately.

According to tracking data from Moz, it takes an average of 5-15 days for a new website to go from launch to being fully indexed:

 
• Discovery Phase (1 hour – 7 days): Google first becomes aware of the website’s existence via external links or webmaster tools.

 

• Crawling Phase (2-48 hours): The crawler visits and downloads the page content.

 

• Indexing Phase (1-7 days): The content is analyzed and stored in the search database.

Due to the automatic generation of a standard sitemap (/sitemap.xml), Shopify websites save about 20% of the indexing time compared to ordinary HTML websites.

However, if the website uses unconventional technology (such as heavy JavaScript rendering), it may increase the processing time by an additional 3-5 days.

Discovery Phase

Google crawlers process approximately 3 trillion web pages daily. Links shared via social media are 47% more likely to be discovered by the crawler than unshared links, while links in forum signatures take an average of 72 hours to be recognized. Even without external links, submitting a sitemap through Google Search Console can trigger the first crawl within 36 hours, which is 60% faster than natural discovery.

Google primarily discovers new websites through three methods:

 
• External Links (60%): If your website is referenced by other already-indexed pages (such as social media, forums, blogs), Googlebot will follow these links to find you. Experimental data shows that 1 high-quality external link can speed up discovery by 2-3 times.

 

• Manual Submission (30%): Submitting a sitemap (sitemap.xml) or a single URL through Google Search Console can directly trigger the Google crawler. Tests show that 80% of manually submitted pages are crawled within 48 hours.

 

• Historical Crawl Records (10%): If Google has previously crawled your old website (e.g., the version before a domain change), it might discover the new content faster.

Key Points:

 
• Shopify’s sitemap.xml defaults to include all product and blog pages, but it needs to be verified and submitted in the Google Search Console backend; otherwise, Google may not proactively crawl it.

 

• If the website has absolutely no external links and relies only on manual submission, the initial indexing time for the homepage might extend to 5-7 days.

Crawling Phase

The Google crawler uses the Chrome 41 rendering engine to process pages, and some modern CSS features might not be correctly parsed. Tests show that images using Lazy Loading have a 15% probability of being missed during the first crawl.

Meanwhile, if a page contains more than 50 internal links, the crawler might stop crawling prematurely.

After the Google crawler visits the website, it performs the following actions:

 
• Parse HTML structure: Extracts titles (


  –

  ), body text, image alt tags, internal links, etc.

 

• Check page load speed: If the mobile load time exceeds 3 seconds, the crawler may reduce the crawl frequency.

 

• Check robots.txt restrictions: If this file contains Disallow: /, Google will completely ignore your website.

Actual Measurement Data:

 
• Shopify’s CDN usually ensures TTFB (Time to First Byte) is between 200-400ms, meeting Google’s crawling requirements.

 

• If a page contains a large amount of JavaScript-rendered content (such as dynamic loading features in some themes), Google may require 2-3 crawls to fully index it.

 

• The crawl depth per page usually does not exceed 5 layers (e.g., Homepage → Category Page → Product Page), so key content should be placed in shallow directories.

Optimization Suggestions:

 
• Use the Google URL Inspection Tool (Search Console) to confirm that the crawler can access the page normally.

 

• Avoid using the noindex tag, unless for sensitive pages (such as the shopping cart, user backend).

Indexing Phase

Google’s indexing system adopts a tiered processing mechanism. New website pages will first enter a temporary index, staying there for an average of 48 hours before entering the main index. Research shows that pages with structured data enter the main index 40% faster than ordinary pages.

Pages with a mobile experience score below 60 points have a 30% chance of being delayed in indexing.

After crawling is complete, Google evaluates content quality to decide whether to store it in the index. Influencing factors include:

 
• Content Originality: Content with a similarity rate exceeding 80% compared to existing pages may be filtered.

 

• User Experience: Pages with poor mobile adaptation or excessive pop-ups may be demoted.

 

• Website Authority: New domains have low initial trust and usually require 3-6 months to achieve stable rankings.

Data Reference:

 
• Approximately 40% of Shopify product pages are delayed in indexing due to a lack of unique descriptions (e.g., directly using text provided by the manufacturer).

 

• Google updates its index once a day on average, but important pages (e.g., high-traffic entry points) may take effect within a few hours.

How to confirm if it has been indexed?

 
• Search for site:yourdomain.com to view the number of results.

 

• Check the indexed/ unindexed pages in Google Search Console’s “Coverage Report”.

How to Speed Up Google Indexing

According to test data from Search Engine Land:

 
• Manually submitted pages (via Google Search Console) are included 3-5 times faster than naturally crawled pages.

 

• For websites with high-quality external links, Google crawler visit frequency increases by 50%, and indexing speed accelerates accordingly.

 

• Technically optimized pages (such as load speed < 1.5 seconds, no robots.txt restrictions) have an 80% increase in successful crawl rate.

Proactive Submission

Data shows that unsubmitted websites take an average of 14 days to be discovered. Submitting a sitemap through Search Console can shorten this time to 36 hours, with product pages having about 25% higher crawl priority than blog pages.

Repeated submission of the homepage using the “Request Indexing” feature might trigger anti-spam mechanisms, so it is recommended to wait at least 12 hours between submissions.

Google won’t automatically know your website exists; you must proactively inform it through the following methods:

(1) Submit to Google Search Console

 
• Register and verify your Shopify website (you need to confirm domain ownership).

 

• Submit sitemap.xml in the “Sitemaps” section (Shopify automatically generates it, usually located at /sitemap.xml).

 

• Effect: Tests show that 90% of websites with submitted sitemaps are crawled for the first time within 48 hours.

(2) Manually Submit Important Pages

 
• Enter key pages (such as homepage, new product pages) in the Search Console’s “URL Inspection Tool” and click “Request Indexing”.

 

• Effect: The indexing time for a single URL can be reduced to 6-24 hours.

(3) Utilize Bing Webmaster Tools

 
• Google and Bing crawlers sometimes share data, so submitting to Bing might indirectly speed up Google indexing.

 

• Actual measurement data: The indexing speed of synchronously submitted websites is an average of 20-30% faster.

Increase Crawler Visit Opportunities

Experiments show that external links from DA>50 websites can increase crawler visit frequency by 300%, while social media links are only valid for 72 hours. For every additional keyword difference in internal link anchor text, the page’s crawl probability increases by 15%.

Websites updated more than twice a week have a 60% shorter crawler revisit interval than static websites.

Google crawlers discover pages through links, so you need to provide more entry points:

(1) Get High-Quality External Links

 
• Social Media: Share website links on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; even without a large following, they can be discovered by crawlers.

 

• Industry Forums/Blogs: Answer questions in relevant communities (such as Reddit, Quora) and include a link.

 

• Effect: 1 external link from an authoritative site can increase indexing speed by 2-3 times.

(2) Optimize Internal Linking Structure

 
• Ensure mutual linking between the homepage, category pages, and product pages to form a “crawler path”.

 

• Key Points:
   
  • Each page should contain at least 3-5 internal links (such as “Related Products,” “Latest Articles”).

   

  • Avoid orphan pages (pages without any internal links pointing to them).

 

• Effect: For websites with reasonable internal links, Google crawler’s crawl depth increases by 40%.

(3) Update Old Content

 
• Regularly modify or supplement existing articles/product descriptions; Google will visit active websites more frequently.

 

• Data Reference: Websites updated 1-2 times a week see a 50% increase in crawler visit frequency.

Technical Optimization

For Shopify stores, every 100ms reduction in TTFB increases the crawler’s complete crawl rate by 8%. Pages using the WebP image format have a 12% higher successful crawl rate than PNG.

When robots.txt contains more than 5 rules, the crawler parsing error rate increases by 40%, so it is recommended to keep it within 3 core rules.

If the Google crawler encounters technical issues, it might give up crawling directly:

(1) Check robots.txt Settings

 
• Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt and confirm that there are no erroneous rules like Disallow: /.

 

• Common Error: Some Shopify plugins may mistakenly block crawlers, requiring manual adjustment.

(2) Improve Page Load Speed

 
• Google prioritizes crawling pages with a mobile load speed < 3 seconds.

 

• Optimization Suggestions:
   
  • Compress images (use TinyPNG or Shopify’s built-in optimization tools).

   

  • Reduce third-party scripts (such as unnecessary tracking codes).

 

• Effect: A 1-second speed improvement increases the successful crawl rate by 30%.

(3) Avoid Duplicate Content

 
• Google may ignore pages that are highly similar to other websites (such as generic product descriptions provided by the manufacturer).

 

• Solution:
   
  • Rewrite at least 30% of the text to ensure uniqueness.

   

  • Use the canonical tag to specify the original version.

How to Check if a Website is Indexed

Google does not automatically notify you whether your website has been included. According to data from Search Engine Journal:

 
• About 35% of new pages are not correctly indexed within 3 days of submission.

 

• 18% of e-commerce product pages are delayed in inclusion for more than 1 month due to technical issues.

 

• Proactive checking can increase the discovery speed of unindexed pages by 5 times.

Below are three verification methods and their specific steps:

Use Google Search Console to Confirm Index Status

The Search Console index report will show the specific reasons why a page was excluded, with “Submitted and not indexed” accounting for 65% of problem pages. Data shows that mobile adaptability issues cause 28% of pages to be delayed in indexing, while content duplication issues account for 19%.

The accuracy of real-time queries via the “URL Inspection Tool” is as high as 98%, but there is a 1-2 hour delay in data updates. Product pages are generally 12 hours faster than blog pages on average.

This is the most accurate tool provided by Google officially:

 
• Log in to Search Console (website ownership must be verified in advance)

 

• View the Coverage Report:
   
  • Green numbers indicate indexed pages.

   

  • Red numbers indicate pages with issues.

 

• Specific steps:
   
  • Select “Index” > “Pages” from the left menu.

   

  • View the number of “Indexed” pages.

   

  • Click on “Not indexed” to see the specific reasons.

Data Reference:

 
• 93% of indexing issues found through Search Console can be resolved through technical adjustments.

 

• Average detection delay: 2-48 hours (more timely than direct search).

Quick Check with the site: command

The search results of the site: command will be affected by personalized search, and the actual inclusion volume may deviate by 15-20%. Comparative tests show that using exact match search (with quotation marks) can increase result accuracy by 40%. It takes an average of 18 hours for a new page to go from being indexed to appearing in the site: results, with product pages being the fastest (12 hours) and blog pages the slowest (36 hours).

The simplest method for daily checking:

Enter the following in the Google search bar: site:yourdomain.com

View the returned results:

 
• Results displayed: means it has been indexed.

 

• No results: may not have been included.

Advanced Usage: site:yourdomain.com “specific product name”

Checks if a specific product page has been included.

Notes:

 
• The number of results may have an error of about 10%.

 

• Newly included pages may take 1-3 days to appear in the search results.

 

• It is recommended to check 1-2 times a week.

Check Server Logs to Confirm Crawler Visits

Server logs show that Googlebot’s visits have clear time-period characteristics, with 70% of crawls occurring between 2:00-8:00 UTC. In the crawler requests of established websites, 72% are concentrated on important product pages, while new sites prefer the homepage (accounting for 85%).

Log analysis can reveal that content loaded using AJAX takes an average of 3 crawls to be fully included, which is 48 hours more than static pages.

Genuine Googlebot requests will contain the “Googlebot/2.1” identifier, with fake requests accounting for about 5%.

A more technical but most reliable method:

Get server logs:

 
• Shopify backend: Download in “Reports” > “Raw Logs”.

 

• Third-party tools: such as Google Analytics.

Search for Googlebot records in the logs:

 
• Common User-Agent includes “Googlebot”.

 

• Check access time and visited pages.

Analyze data:

 
• If you find that the crawler visited but the page is not indexed, it may be a content quality issue.

 

• If there are absolutely no crawler records, it means there is a problem with the discovery phase.

Technical details:

 
• The IP of a genuine Googlebot should be verifiable via reverse DNS.

 

• Normal daily crawl frequency: 1-5 times/day for new sites, 10-50 times/day for established sites.

As long as you continue to optimize, your website will consistently gain organic traffic from Google.