BigCommerce SEO When Shopify Gets All the Plugins

When a BigCommerce store trails a competitor on another platform, “they have an app for that” is a tempting explanation. It turns a content, links or indexing problem into a shopping decision. Before looking for a missing plugin, check the causes that don’t depend on which cart software you run: thin category pages, a weaker link profile, and filter and sort URLs crowding the index. Then use the controls your store already has, and solve the remaining gaps with your own HTML and JSON-LD rather than waiting for an app.

Diagnose before blaming the platform

Start with one comparison: how many of your URLs Google knows about versus how many products and categories you have. Search Console’s Page Indexing report shows indexed and not-indexed URLs, and its sitemap filter can show all known pages, only submitted pages or only unsubmitted pages.

If Google knows several times more URLs than your catalog has pages, and the extra ones are filter and sort combinations, the problem is indexation, not a missing feature. Look at the unsubmitted pages in particular: URLs that aren’t in your sitemap but that Google found anyway can be the ones your navigation is generating.

Check the controls your store already has

Store admins get relabeled, and settings change between plans and versions, so confirm each of these in your own BigCommerce admin and in BigCommerce’s current help documentation rather than from an article:

• robots.txt. Where you edit it, and whether you can add pattern rules for filter parameters.
• URL structure. What product and category URL formats the store supports, and which one it uses now.
• Redirects. Whether 301s can be managed in bulk, for example by import, and whether a redirect is created automatically when a product URL changes.
• Category descriptions. Whether they accept HTML, so you can add structured editorial content.
• Structured data. What product markup your theme outputs, and where you can add or override JSON-LD.

These are the levers that do the work an app would otherwise sell you. Knowing exactly what your admin offers can turn “we need a plugin” into a configuration task.

Fix faceted-navigation indexing

The method is the same on any platform. Google’s faceted navigation guide gives two paths: if you don’t need filtered URLs in Search, prevent crawling with robots.txt rules for the filter parameters; if you need filtered URLs indexed, keep them clean, with a consistent filter order and a 404 for combinations with no results.

Two cautions carry across platforms:

• Order matters when URLs are already indexed. Google says a page blocked by robots.txt never has its noindex seen. If filter URLs are already in the index, apply noindex first, let Google recrawl and drop them, then add the robots.txt rules. Google’s crawl budget guide adds that noindex doesn’t save crawling, since Google still requests the page, which is why the robots.txt step follows.
• Keep filter variants out of your XML sitemap. A sitemap tells Google which URLs you want found; listing filter combinations works against the rest of the cleanup.

Avoid a blanket Disallow: /*?*; it can block parameters you need crawled, such as pagination. Disallow the specific filter parameters, the way Google’s own example does.

Give category pages something to rank on

Once crawl bloat is contained, category depth is the next on-page lever. A bare product grid under a one-line heading gives a searcher, and Google, little to go on. Add editorial content to priority categories: buying considerations, how to choose, what separates the subcategories. That lets a category page answer comparison and “which one” searches, not only the exact-match category term.

Product reviews markup: know which rule applies

Product pages can carry review and aggregate rating markup, and Google’s review snippet guidelines set the rules. Four are the ones to check against your review app:

• The self-serving rule is about businesses, not products. When the entity being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, pages using LocalBusiness or any other Organization markup are ineligible for star reviews. That rule is about reviews of your business; it doesn’t cover reviews of the products you sell.
• Don’t import ratings from other sites. Google says not to aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites, so the markup should carry only reviews collected on your store.
• No fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews. Google says not to include them on the page or in the markup, and gives reviews written in exchange for a benefit, such as money, discounts or free products, without clear and prominent disclosure as an example.
• Review a specific item. The guidelines say to provide review information about a specific item, not about a category or a list of items, so keep aggregate ratings on product pages, not category pages.

Check what your review app outputs. Reviews marked up on Product are what you want; reviews attached to your Organization markup fall under the self-serving rule.

FAQ markup won’t produce a rich result

If your theme doesn’t output FAQ markup, don’t hand-roll it for a search feature. Google’s Search updates log records the sequence: in 2023 it limited the FAQ rich result to well-known, authoritative government and health websites; in May 2026 it announced the feature would no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026; and in June 2026 it removed the FAQ rich result documentation. Write FAQ content where it helps shoppers decide, and judge it by that.

Apps, custom code and the order of work

Every app that adds scripts to your storefront is something to measure, not only something to install. Before adding one, check what it loads and test the pages it touches with PageSpeed Insights. Where a template change or a short JSON-LD block does the job, you control the output and it doesn’t change when an app updates.

Custom templates also give you room for linkable assets that can earn links a product page on its own may not: comparison tools, calculators and original buying guides.

A workable order:

1. Contain faceted-navigation indexing, so crawling goes to the pages you want found.
2. Deepen your top category pages with real editorial content.
3. Check product review markup against Google’s review snippet rules.
4. Build one linkable asset with the template flexibility you already have.

None of that requires waiting for a plugin.

Frequently asked questions

Does BigCommerce outrank Shopify for SEO?

Neither platform outranks the other by default. Rankings depend on what your pages serve, whatever the platform, such as content depth, links and clean indexation. The practical difference is how much you configure yourself and how much you install.

Should I block filter URLs in robots.txt or noindex them?

It depends on whether they are already indexed. If they are, noindex first so Google can see it and drop them, then block the specific filter parameters in robots.txt. If they were never indexed, block the parameters from the start. Avoid a blanket rule that blocks every query string.