SEO
Every page on your storefront is rendered on the server, so crawlers receive complete HTML without having to run JavaScript. Most of what a crawler reads comes from the SEO fields you already maintain in BigCommerce.
What your storefront emits
On every page:
| Tag | Source |
|---|---|
<title> | Your BigCommerce SEO page title, falling back to the item or page name |
<meta name="description"> | Your BigCommerce meta description |
<meta name="keywords"> | Your BigCommerce meta keywords |
<link rel="canonical"> | Your storefront's base URL plus the page path, with query strings removed |
| Viewport and character set | Standard, set by the storefront |
| Favicon and app icons | Your icons, applied by us |
| Web app manifest | Generated per store |
Canonical URLs are built from your storefront's configured base address. If you move to a custom domain, make sure your channel's primary site URL is updated too. See Custom Domain & SSL.
Where the metadata comes from
| Page type | Metadata source |
|---|---|
| Product pages | Product SEO fields in BigCommerce |
| Category pages | Category SEO fields in BigCommerce |
| Content pages | Web page SEO fields in BigCommerce |
| Home page | Store-level SEO settings in BigCommerce |
| Built-in pages such as search, cart and account | Built into the storefront |
The built-in page titles and descriptions can be changed on request; it's a small change for us. See What You Can Customize.
Open Graph
Product and category pages emit Open Graph tags, so links preview properly when shared on social platforms and in messaging apps. Controlled by the openGraph setting, on by default.
| Tag | Value |
|---|---|
og:type | product |
og:title | The product or category name, truncated to 70 characters |
og:description | The description, HTML stripped, truncated to 200 characters |
og:image | The product or category image, as an absolute URL |
og:url | The canonical URL |
og:locale, og:site_name | Your locale and store name |
product:price:amount, product:price:currency | Included only when prices are visible to guests |
There is no dedicated social share image. Previews use the product's or category's own image, so a product with a poor primary image will preview poorly. If you need a fixed share image for your home page, that's an advanced customization.
If you set guestSeePrices to false, price is also removed from Open Graph tags. A link preview can't show a price that an unauthenticated visitor isn't allowed to see.
Structured data
Product detail pages emit Product structured data as JSON-LD, which is what search engines use for rich results such as price and availability.
Organization, breadcrumb and item-list structured data are not emitted today. If you need them, tell us. It's on our roadmap, and it can also be added to your storefront as an advanced customization.
robots.txt
Your storefront serves a robots.txt that we manage. By default it asks crawlers not to index paths that shouldn't appear in search results:
- Cart
- Checkout
- Order confirmation
- Account pages
- API paths
To add a crawl delay, reference a sitemap, or disallow something specific, contact support. See Settings we manage for you.
Practical checks before launch
- Spot-check three product pages: is the title what you want in search results, and is the meta description filled in?
- Confirm canonical URLs use the domain you're launching on, not the address you tested against.
- Share a product link into a messaging app and check the preview.
- Submit your BigCommerce sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
- If you're migrating from an existing storefront, set up redirects from your old URLs before you cut over. Your URL structure may differ, and unredirected URLs lose their ranking.
See also
- Product Data — the BigCommerce fields your product pages read
- Analytics & Tags — Google Tag Manager
- Custom Domain & SSL — canonical URLs and the cutover