Guide

How to use Shopify's search engine listing preview

Edit Shopify's Search engine listing on a product, collection, page or the homepage. Real admin screenshots, character limits and URL redirects.

Written by

Rishi Babu

Lead marketer at Cascayd

Published November 12, 202613 min read

Summary

Shopify's Search engine listing preview is the box on a product, collection or page that shows how the title, URL and description might appear in Google. Open the item in your admin, find the Search engine listing section, and click the pencil (or Edit, on a collection). Fill in Page title (counted to 70 characters; Shopify suggests staying around 60 so Google is less likely to shorten it) and Meta description (counted to 160). The homepage is different: go to Online Store > Preferences, and use Social sharing image and SEO, where the homepage description is counted to 320. Leave the URL handle alone unless you have a reason to change it, and if you do, leave Create a URL redirect ticked. After you save, give Google time to recrawl. It can also rewrite your title or description, so the preview is a guide, not a guarantee.

Do this with Sidekick or Claude

If you'd rather hand this to Shopify Sidekick, or to Claude with a Shopify connection, paste the prompt below. It drafts titles and descriptions, leaves URL handles alone, and waits for you to review before saving.

Edit the Search engine listing for my Shopify store. Use my Shopify admin. Do not save any changes, and do not change any URL handles, until I have reviewed your drafts.

For each important product, collection and page:

1. Open the item and find the section titled "Search engine listing". Open it with the pencil button or Edit.
2. Note the current Page title, Meta description and URL handle, and whether the fields are still using the automatic defaults (the item's own title, and, on a product, its product description). Many collections and pages have an empty Meta description.
3. Draft a unique Page title and Meta description for that item.
   - Page title: descriptive, with the words a shopper would search near the start. The admin counts to 70 characters; keep it around 60 so it is less likely to be cut off in search results. Do not change the product or page Title at the top of the editor. That Title is the heading on the storefront, and the Search engine listing Page title is separate.
   - Meta description: a plain, direct sentence that tells someone why they should click. The admin counts this to 160 characters on products, collections and pages.
   - Leave the URL handle unchanged.
4. Show me the Search engine listing preview for each draft, including the character counts, and wait for me to approve before saving.

Then open Online Store > Preferences and look at the "Social sharing image and SEO" section.
- "Home page title" is counted to 70 characters. A filled-in looking domain in that field can be a placeholder, with the counter still at 0 of 70: that means nothing is saved yet.
- "Meta description" on the homepage is counted to 320 characters, which is longer than on a product. The placeholder says "Enter a description to be shown on search engines like Google".
Draft a homepage title and description, show them to me, and wait for approval before saving.

If I later ask you to change a URL handle, tick "Create a URL redirect" so the old address keeps working, and still wait for my review before you save.

Do not publish themes, install apps, or change other store settings.

Search engine listing on the Ceramic Pour-Over Set product, with a pencil, the store name cascayd-guides, the product URL, the blue title, the product description, and a price of $64.00 USD. — The Search engine listing on a product. This is the Ceramic Pour-Over Set in our dev store: Shopify has filled the preview from the product title, the product URL, and the product description, and it also shows the price.

Edit the Search engine listing on a product

The section lives on the product itself, not in the theme editor.

Step 1: Open the product

From your Shopify admin, go to Products, then click the product you want to edit. We'll use a Ceramic Pour-Over Set, priced at $64, as the example.

Step 2: Find Search engine listing

Scroll down the product page until you see the Search engine listing section. Shopify already shows a preview here: your store name, the product URL, a blue title, a short description, and, on a product, the price.

If you have never touched this section, the title is usually the product title, and the description is usually taken from the product description. That is fine as a starting point. It is often shorter, or vaguer, than you would write if you were trying to earn the click.

Step 3: Click the pencil to edit

The control is a pencil in the top right of the section. Its accessible name is Edit. Click it, and three fields appear under the preview: Page title, Meta description, and URL handle.

Search engine listing fields open on Ceramic Pour-Over Set. Page title is 21 of 70 characters used, Meta description is 115 of 160 characters used, and the URL handle is products/ceramic-pour-over-set. — The same product with the fields open. The Page title is 21 of 70 characters, and the Meta description is 115 of 160, both still matching the product's own title and description.

This Page title is not the product Title at the top of the editor. The Title at the top is the heading on your product page. The Page title in this section is what search engines are offered for the result. Changing one does not rename the other.

Step 4: Write the title and description, then watch the preview

Type in Page title and Meta description. The preview at the top of the section updates as you type.

The counters sit under each field: 21 of 70 characters used, 115 of 160 characters used. Those 70 and 160 numbers are the limits Shopify is counting to in the admin for products, collections and pages. Shopify's own SEO guidance is to keep the title around 60 characters, because search engines often shorten a longer one. You can type past the counter. It does not stop you. On this product, a 90-character title and a 223-character description were accepted, and the preview cut both with an ellipsis.

Search engine listing on Ceramic Pour-Over Set with a title at 90 of 70 characters, cut in the preview at Beautiful Mo..., and a description at 223 of 160 characters, cut at kitch.... Create a URL redirect is ticked.

A tighter title for this product would keep the thing someone is searching for at the front, and a concrete detail after it, inside that 60-character comfort zone. Something like "Ceramic Pour-Over Set, 2-Cup Coffee Brewer" does that. A description can add the reason to click: size, material, who it is for, or a delivery detail you actually offer. Skip a list of keywords.

Leave URL handle as it is unless you have a reason to change the web address. The field shows the prefix, such as products/, and the full URL underneath. More on handles in a later section.

Step 5: Save

Click Save on the product. The listing is stored on the product. It does not need a theme publish.

Collections and pages use the same section

Collections and pages have the same Search engine listing section, with the same Page title (70), Meta description (160) and URL handle fields. The handle prefix changes: collections/ for a collection, pages/ for a page.

On a collection, the control is a visible Edit button rather than a pencil, and it turns into Done once the fields are open. On a page, it is the same pencil as on a product.

Search engine listing on the Hydrogen collection, with a labelled Edit button, the collection URL, the blue title Hydrogen, and no meta description. — A collection called Hydrogen, still on the automatic title, with no meta description. The Edit button is a labelled pill, not a pencil.

Empty meta descriptions are common on collections and pages. This collection's counter sat at 0 of 160 characters used, and the preview had a title and a URL, but no description line. If you only have time for a few, fill the collections and pages that already get search traffic, then the ones you care about most.

One quirk of the preview: when we passed the limits on this collection, a title at 80 of 70 wrapped onto a second line instead of being cut, and the long description stayed visible. The same overflow on the product and on a Contact page was cut with an ellipsis. Treat the preview as a guide. Google will make its own choice about length.

The homepage lives under Preferences

The homepage is not a product, collection or page, so it has no Search engine listing section of that name. Its fields are at Online Store > Preferences, in Social sharing image and SEO.

Social sharing image and SEO on Online Store Preferences. Add image recommends 1200 x 628 px. Home page title shows a domain at 0 of 70 characters used. Meta description is 0 of 320 characters used. Automatic hreflang tags is switched on. — The homepage SEO fields on Online Store > Preferences. Home page title is counted to 70 characters, and Meta description to 320. The domain in the title field is a placeholder: the counter still reads 0 of 70.

The labels are slightly different:

Home page title, counted to 70 characters. A domain that looks typed in can still be a placeholder. If the counter says 0 of 70 characters used, nothing is saved yet.
Meta description, counted to 320 characters, not 160. The placeholder reads: "Enter a description to be shown on search engines like Google".
Add image, recommended at 1200 x 628 px, for the picture used when the homepage is shared.

On the same screen is Automatic hreflang tags, with the explanation "Shopify adds hreflang tags to your store's HTML so search engines can show buyers the right region or language version". If you sell in more than one market or language, that toggle is the one to know about. It is separate from the title and description.

Click Save on the Preferences page when you are done.

If you change the URL handle

Shopify generates a handle from the title when you create the item. You rarely need to change it. Shopify's product documentation also warns that changing a handle too often can make the product harder for search engines to keep track of.

When you do edit the handle, Shopify offers a checkbox: Create a URL redirect for the old handle to the new one. It is ticked by default. Leave it ticked, so anyone (and any search result) still using the old address lands on the new one.

The handle cannot contain spaces. Use dashes between words. You only edit the last part; the products/, collections/ or pages/ prefix stays.

After you save

Two things are worth knowing, both from Shopify's own SEO guidance.

Google can rewrite your title or description. A listing that looks right in the admin preview can still show different text in search results. To check that your store is outputting what you saved, open the live page, view the page source, and look for the <title> tag and the meta description near the top. If those match what you entered, your store is doing its job, and any difference in Google is Google's choice.

Updates can take days or a few weeks to appear in search results. You can ask Google to recrawl a page with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. That still is not instant.

A short pass you can do after editing:

Every important product has a Page title you actually wrote, at or under 70 characters, and ideally around 60.
Those products have a Meta description, counted to 160, that would make you click.
Collections and pages that already get traffic are not sitting at 0 of 160.
The homepage has a real Home page title and description in Online Store > Preferences, not a 0-of-70 placeholder.
You left URL handles alone, or you left Create a URL redirect ticked.
On a couple of live pages, the page source matches what you saved.

Make the page fit the listing

A clearer title and description are a click-through question first. They can bring you more of the traffic you want, or more of the traffic you do not, if the listing oversells what the page actually is. If someone clicks "Ceramic Pour-Over Set, 2-Cup Coffee Brewer" and the product page buries the size, or leads with a different story, they leave, and bounce rate goes up.

The listing and the page have to fit. Once you have written the title, the thing to test is not a new title. It is whether the page delivers on that title: the heading, the photos, the first lines of the description, the details the listing promised.

A clean test:

Control: your current product page, with the Search engine listing left as it is.
Variant: the same listing, and page content that makes good on it, so the heading, images and copy actually show what the title said.
Who: shoppers who arrive on that page from search.
Hypothesis: people who clicked the listing will buy more often when the page matches what they were promised, so revenue per visitor goes up.

Set the rules before it starts:

Sample size worked out up front with the sample size calculator, using that page's search traffic and current revenue per visitor.
At least two full weeks, so weekday and weekend shoppers are both in it. Longer if the sample size says so.
Read the result once, at 95% significance.
The Search engine listing stays the same during the test. Only the page content changes.

The Shopify product page optimization guide has more to test on the page itself.

This is the kind of test Cascayd runs for Shopify stores. Our team does the research, the strategy and the creative design, and AI speeds up the build and the grunt work. Each test comes to you in Slack with the reasoning, and you approve it before it runs. We only charge when you make money. If you want your product pages tested and judged on revenue, book a call.