SEO·AEO·GEO
PricingSign inAudit

SEO by platform · Updated

BigCommerce SEO: settings and checklist

BigCommerce generates an XML sitemap, lets you edit robots.txt, and gives every product, category and page its own title, meta description and URL fields. The work is filling them in well and keeping the catalog free of thin duplicates.

Aalhad, Founder, SEO·AEO·GEO

Founder, SEO·AEO·GEO

Builds SEO·AEO·GEO and writes the crawler, schema, and citation research published here.

How BigCommerce serves pages to crawlers

BigCommerce's Stencil themes render pages on the server. Headless storefronts built with frameworks need their own server rendering.

Store settings

  1. Settings > Website (or SEO settings, depending on your control panel version): choose the URL structure for products, categories and pages before launch.
  2. The XML sitemap is generated automatically at /xmlsitemap.php; submit it in Search Console.
  3. robots.txt can be edited in the website settings; most stores keep the default.
  4. Set up 301 redirects when URLs change.

Products and categories

  • Fill in each product's SEO section: page title, meta description and product URL.
  • Write original descriptions and add useful category text.
  • Use descriptive image alt text.
  • Check that faceted search URLs aren't creating many indexable duplicates.

Structured data and speed

Most current themes output Product structured data; test a product URL in the Rich Results Test. Compress images and limit apps and scripts for speed.

  • Check robots.txt allows the AI search crawlers you want: OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot. See the AI crawler list and the robots.txt generator.
  • Check your host's or CDN's bot protection doesn't block them even when robots.txt allows them.
  • Make sure the main text is in the HTML the server sends. AI crawlers don't run JavaScript.
  • Avoid nosnippet and tiny max-snippet values on pages you want quoted; they also keep pages out of Google's AI Overviews.

Check it on your own site

What the free audit tests for this

  • Title tag
  • Meta description
  • sitemap.xml
  • Schema.org / JSON-LD

One URL, about 20 seconds, no login. You get the result of every check and the exact fix for the top three issues.

Audit your website free

FAQ

Where is the BigCommerce sitemap?+

At /xmlsitemap.php on your store's domain. BigCommerce generates it automatically.

Is BigCommerce good for SEO?+

Yes. It provides editable metadata, URLs, robots.txt and an automatic sitemap on server-rendered themes.

Sources

  1. How to specify a canonical URL — Google Search Central
  2. Product structured data — Google Search Central