Last Updated on by Dan S
Originally Published November 7, 2021.


Opening an online store can seem fun and an excitable challenge. Starting your own brand online now is super easy. However, there are some challenges you might face when you first start out.

Where to find the robots.txt file for my Shopify store

Finding and reaching your target audience is one of the most integral parts of any online business. Your webpages need to have excellent SEO, especially if you want to hike up the rankings on Google.

A robots.txt file is a tool that tells web crawlers which of your online store’s webpages to crawl. Sometimes, you’ll need to edit this code to ensure it works correctly.

What does a robots.txt file do?

A robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which URLs the crawlers are able to access on your website. This is put in place to ensure your website is not overloaded with requests. Webpages such as an order confirmation page would not need to be crawled, as this doesn’t need to rank on Google.

It’s important to know the location of the robots.txt file in case you need to edit it.

Where to find robots.txt for my Shopify store?

You can normally find the robots.txt file near your store’s primary domain name. It can be found near the root directory of your store’s domain. For example, the file would appear as myshopifydomain.com/robots.txt.

Can you edit the robots.txt file?

From 2021, Shopify stores are now able to edit their robots.txt file. This gives owners more control over how search engine crawl their websites. If changes do need to be made, you can edit the file in the robots.txt.liquid template.

How to edit robots.txt in Shopify

Use the following steps to edit the robots.txt in your Shopify store:

  • Navigate your Shopify Admin
  • Go to Online Store > Themes
  • Select Actions > Edit Code
  • Select Templates > Add a new template
  • Select robots from the dropdown menu
  • Click Create Template
  • Make any changes you want to the default template
  • Save the changes to the robots.txt liquid file in your published theme

 

Use an app to edit the robots.txt file

If you don’t want to change the code in your store, you can use the app robots.txt editor. It allows you to simply create and edit the robots.txt file in your Shopify store.

robots.txt