Journal
SEO, GEO, AI search — notes on how brands get read and found.
Shopify
Shopify Not in Search: Six Checks
When a Shopify store is missing from search or AI search, here are six items in the order to check them: duplicate URLs and canonical, the fixed URL structure and hierarchy, hreflang for cross-border, pages from Japan-specific apps, redirects after migration, and app loading and speed.
Too Many Shopify Apps: Speed, Search, and AI Citations
Shopify lets you add features through apps, but every app adds JavaScript to your pages, slowing them down and degrading Core Web Vitals. This article covers how slower pages affect search and AI citations, how to measure each app's impact, the criteria for removing, replacing, or lazy-loading apps, and cleaning up code left behind after removal.
Japanese ASP Cart to Shopify: Carrying Over URLs and Structured Data
Migrating to Shopify from makeshop, Color Me Shop, futureshop, or similar always changes the shape of your URLs. To avoid losing search performance in the move, this article walks through the URL mapping table, redirect design, carrying over structured data, and the metrics to watch before and after, in the order of the migration timeline.
SEO for Pages Created by Shopify's Japan-Specific Apps
Running Shopify in Japan means relying on Japan-specific apps for noshi (gift wrapping), delivery date and time selection, and convenience store pickup. Whether to index or exclude the pages and parameterized URLs these apps create is a judgment call. This article covers the typical output of each app type, the indexing decision, and how to tell AI search that you offer Japan-specific services.
Conveying Hierarchy with Shopify's Fixed URL Structure
Shopify doesn't let you design URL hierarchy freely. Products sit directly under /products/ and collections under /collections/. This article covers how to convey hierarchy instead through breadcrumbs, internal links, and BreadcrumbList structured data, how to handle Japanese handles, and what not to change.
Shopify Cross-Border hreflang and Japanese/English Pages
When you build Japanese and English pages with Shopify Markets, the same product ends up with multiple language URLs. Without hreflang to tell search engines how the languages correspond, the Japanese page can appear in English-language searches, or the pages can be judged duplicates. This article covers what Shopify outputs automatically, how to choose a URL structure (subfolder, subdomain, or separate domain), and the problems caused by missing translations.
Shopify Collection and Tag Duplicate URLs and Crawling
On Shopify, the same product opens at both a collection-path URL and a standalone URL. Because the canonical points to the standalone URL, duplicate indexing is prevented, but crawl budget is still consumed. This article covers the scope of the impact, including tag pages and filter URLs, and three ways to handle them.