SiteAuditLint checklist library
What this checklist covers
An ecommerce SEO checklist covers category and product pages, product and breadcrumb schema, variant canonicals, faceted navigation, pagination, out of stock handling, duplicate product content, and sitemaps for online stores.
It is organized into 12 sections: Category Pages, Product Pages, Product URLs, Product Schema, Canonicals, Faceted Navigation, Pagination, Out of Stock, Duplicate Products, Images, XML Sitemap and Internal Linking. Each check lists exactly what to verify and a priority, so you can work through the highest impact items first.
For background on the concepts behind these checks, see Shopify SEO audit, eBay SEO audit, Duplicate content checker.
Who it is for:
Download the ecommerce seo checklist
Use the interactive version below, or download it to share with your team, attach to tickets, or work through offline.
Ecommerce SEO Checklist
Work through each check
0 of 13 checks complete
Category Pages
Product Pages
Product URLs
Product Schema
Canonicals
Pagination
Out of Stock
Duplicate Products
Images
XML Sitemap
Internal Linking
Progress is saved in this browser only.
Detailed explanations
Each section below explains what to check, why it matters, the problems you will usually find, how to fix them, and how to confirm the fix.
Category Pages
What to check:
- Optimize category pages. Unique title, H1 and intro copy.
Why it matters: Ecommerce sites generate huge numbers of URLs from products, variants, and filters. Without control, crawl budget is wasted and duplicate pages compete with category and product pages.
Common problems:
- Faceted filters creating millions of indexable URLs
- Variant URLs not canonicalized
- Out of stock products returning 404 abruptly
- Manufacturer descriptions duplicated across retailers
How to fix it: Decide which facets deserve indexable pages, canonicalize variants, handle stock changes deliberately, and write unique copy for priority products.
How to verify: Crawl with parameters enabled and compare indexable URL counts to your product and category counts.
Learn more: Duplicate content SEO, URL parameters issue, Walmart SEO audit, Target SEO audit.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks category pages across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Product Pages
What to check:
- Optimize product pages. Unique title and description per product.
Why it matters: Ecommerce sites generate huge numbers of URLs from products, variants, and filters. See the earlier section on this topic for common problems.
How to verify: Crawl with parameters enabled and compare indexable URL counts to your product and category counts.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks product pages across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Product URLs
What to check:
- Check product URLs. One canonical URL per product.
Why it matters: Clean URLs are easier to understand, share, and maintain. Changing URLs later creates redirect overhead and risks ranking loss.
Common problems:
- Uppercase letters and underscores
- Session IDs or unnecessary parameters
- Dates or IDs in URLs that will need to change
- URL changes after launch without redirects
How to fix it: Use lowercase, hyphenated, descriptive URLs and keep them stable.
How to verify: Export all crawled URLs and review patterns for parameters, case issues, and length.
Learn more: URLs lesson, SEO friendly URLs, Fixing incorrect URL formats, Uppercase URL issue.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks product urls across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Product Schema
What to check:
- Add Product schema. Price, availability and reviews validate.
- Add Breadcrumb schema. Breadcrumbs validate.
Why it matters: Structured data helps search engines and AI systems understand entities on the page and can unlock rich results. Invalid or misleading markup is ignored or can trigger manual actions.
Common problems:
- Syntax errors in JSON-LD
- Required properties missing for the chosen type
- Markup describing content not visible on the page
- Schema removed during a template change
How to fix it: Use JSON-LD, include required and recommended properties, and keep markup consistent with visible content.
How to verify: Validate key templates with the Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator, then monitor enhancement reports in Search Console.
Learn more: Schema markup for AI, Invalid schema issue, Missing schema issue.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks product schema across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Canonicals
What to check:
- Check variant canonicals. Variants canonicalize correctly.
Why it matters: The canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page is the preferred one when duplicates or variants exist. It consolidates ranking signals onto one URL. A broken canonical can quietly deindex the page you care about most.
Common problems:
- Canonicals pointing to staging or development domains
- Relative canonical URLs that resolve incorrectly
- Canonicals pointing to redirected, 404, or noindexed URLs
- Every paginated or variant page canonicalized to page one
How to fix it: Use absolute canonical URLs on the production domain, make indexable pages self canonical, and point duplicates at a live, indexable 200 URL.
How to verify: Crawl the site and compare the canonical URL with the page URL. Flag any canonical that is non self referencing, redirects, returns an error, or is noindexed.
Learn more: Canonicals lesson, Canonical tag issues and fixes, Missing canonical issue, Canonicalised URL issue.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks canonicals across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Faceted Navigation
What to check:
- Control facets. Low value filter combinations are not indexable.
Why it matters: Google renders JavaScript, but rendering is delayed, resource limited, and not guaranteed. Many AI crawlers do not render JavaScript at all. Content, links, and SEO tags that only appear after scripts run are at risk of being missed.
Common problems:
- Main content injected only on the client
- Links implemented as buttons or onClick handlers
- Titles, canonicals, or meta robots changed by JavaScript
- Single page app routes returning 200 for missing pages
How to fix it: Server render or statically generate critical content and tags, use real anchor links with URLs, and return proper status codes from the server.
How to verify: Compare raw HTML with rendered HTML for each template. Titles, H1s, main content, canonicals, and links should be present in the raw response.
Learn more: JavaScript SEO course, Rendering lesson, JavaScript links lesson, JavaScript SEO guide.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks faceted navigation across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Pagination
What to check:
- Check pagination. Paginated pages are crawlable and self-canonical.
Why it matters: Ecommerce sites generate huge numbers of URLs from products, variants, and filters. See the earlier section on this topic for common problems.
How to verify: Crawl with parameters enabled and compare indexable URL counts to your product and category counts.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks pagination across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Out of Stock
What to check:
- Handle out-of-stock. Temporary stays live; discontinued redirects or 410.
Why it matters: Ecommerce sites generate huge numbers of URLs from products, variants, and filters. See the earlier section on this topic for common problems.
How to verify: Crawl with parameters enabled and compare indexable URL counts to your product and category counts.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks out of stock across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Duplicate Products
What to check:
- Find duplicates. Manufacturer copy is rewritten.
Why it matters: Duplicate and near duplicate URLs split ranking signals and make search engines choose a version for you. They often come from technical variants rather than copied content.
Common problems:
- Trailing slash and non slash versions both returning 200
- Uppercase and lowercase URL variants
- Tracking and sort parameters creating indexable copies
- Printer friendly or session ID versions of pages
How to fix it: Pick one URL format, redirect other variants to it, and canonicalize parameter versions that must remain accessible.
How to verify: Crawl and group pages by identical or near identical content hashes and titles, then confirm each group resolves to one indexable URL.
Learn more: Duplicate content SEO, Duplicate content checker, Near duplicate issue, URL parameters issue.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks duplicate products across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Images
What to check:
- Optimize product images. Alt text and compressed images.
Why it matters: Images influence page speed, accessibility, and image search visibility. Alt text gives context to search engines and screen readers.
Common problems:
- Missing or keyword stuffed alt text
- Oversized images slowing pages
- Broken image URLs
- Images loaded only via CSS backgrounds when they carry meaning
How to fix it: Compress and size images correctly, serve modern formats, write descriptive alt text, and fix broken image sources.
How to verify: Crawl images, filter for missing alt text, 4xx responses, and file sizes above your budget.
Learn more: Images lesson, Image SEO audit, Missing alt text issue.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks images across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
XML Sitemap
What to check:
- Check sitemap. Products and categories included, filters excluded.
Why it matters: An XML sitemap is a list of URLs you want search engines to find and index. It helps discovery of new and deep content and acts as a canonical signal. A sitemap full of redirects, errors, or noindexed URLs weakens trust in that signal.
Common problems:
- Sitemaps containing redirected, 404, or noindexed URLs
- Non canonical URL variants listed instead of the canonical version
- Sitemap not referenced in robots.txt or submitted in Search Console
- Stale sitemaps that are not regenerated on publish
How to fix it: Generate the sitemap automatically from indexable canonical URLs only, keep lastmod accurate, reference it in robots.txt, and submit it in Search Console.
How to verify: Crawl the sitemap URL list on its own. Every entry should return 200, be indexable, and be self canonical.
Learn more: XML sitemaps lesson, XML sitemap errors and fixes, Sitemap non-200 issue, Noindex URL in sitemap issue.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks xml sitemap across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Internal Linking
What to check:
- Link related products. Related and parent category links exist.
Why it matters: Internal links distribute authority, define site architecture, and help crawlers discover content. Broken links waste crawl budget and frustrate users, while orphan pages are almost invisible to search engines.
Common problems:
- Links to deleted pages returning 404
- Links pointing to redirected URLs instead of final destinations
- Orphan pages with no internal links
- Generic anchor text like click here on important links
How to fix it: Fix or remove broken links, update links to point at final URLs, link to orphan pages from relevant hubs, and use descriptive anchor text.
How to verify: Crawl the site and review the broken links, redirecting links, and inlinks reports. Compare sitemap URLs against crawled URLs to find orphans.
Learn more: Internal links lesson, Fix broken internal links, Orphan pages, Internal link analysis.
How SiteAuditLint helps: it checks internal linking across every crawled URL instead of one page at a time and lists exactly which URLs are affected.
Common mistakes
Letting every filter combination be indexed
Canonicalizing all products to a category
Deleting out of stock products without redirects
Using manufacturer descriptions
Missing price and availability in Product schema
When to run the checklist
- When launching a store
- Before peak seasons
- After adding new filters or catalog structures
- During platform migrations
How to verify fixes
- Save a baselineCrawl the site before making changes so you have a record of every status code, canonical, directive and title.
- Fix by priorityStart with High priority checks and issues that affect templates, since one fix there resolves many URLs. See how to prioritize audit findings.
- Re-crawl the same scopeUse the same start URL, crawl limit and settings so the results are comparable.
- Compare the crawlsConfirm the issue count dropped and that no new problems appeared elsewhere. Audit comparison does this field by field.
- Confirm in Search ConsoleUse URL Inspection and the indexing reports to check that Google sees the change. Our indexing tests lesson covers the process.
SiteAuditLint workflow
From manual checklist to automated checks
Most checks in this list run automatically in a SiteAuditLint crawl. Use audit comparison to diff crawls and scheduled audits to monitor for regressions.