Shopify creates two URLs for every product by default. Without correct canonical tags, Google splits your page authority across both — reducing rankings for both. Here is the exact problem and how to fix it.
If you run a Shopify store, you have a duplicate URL problem. It is not a mistake you made. It is how Shopify works by default. Every product in your store has two accessible URLs, and unless your canonical tags are correctly configured, Google is treating them as duplicate content.
This article explains exactly what the problem is, how to verify whether you are affected, and how to fix it without rebuilding your store.
When you add a product to a Shopify collection, Shopify creates two URLs that both load the same product page:
Both URLs are accessible and return the same content. When Google crawls your store, it finds both URLs and has to decide which one to index. Without explicit canonical tags, Google makes this decision based on its own signals — which often means it indexes the collection URL because that is where the product is usually linked from within the store.
The practical consequence: if any external site links to /products/white-trainer but Google is indexing /collections/shoes/products/white-trainer, the link authority from that external link does not fully consolidate. The two URLs compete against each other for the same search queries.
Open Google Search Console and go to URL Inspection. Enter your product's canonical URL (/products/handle) and check which URL Google has selected as canonical. Then enter the collection URL (/collections/name/products/handle) and check its canonical too.
If both URLs show the same canonical (your preferred product URL), you are fine. If they show different canonicals, or if the collection URL shows itself as canonical, you have the problem.
A faster check: install a browser extension that shows page meta tags, then load both product URLs and compare the canonical tag in the <head>. Both should point to the same canonical URL — the direct product URL.
Most Shopify themes handle canonical tags in the layout/theme.liquid file. The canonical tag typically looks like:
{{ canonical_url | link_tag: 'canonical' }}
For product pages, Shopify's canonical_url variable should return the direct product URL. In most modern themes (Online Store 2.0), this is correct by default. In older themes or heavily customised themes, this may be returning the collection-scoped URL.
To verify: view the source of your product page (right-click > View Source) and search for 'canonical'. You should see something like:
<link rel='canonical' href='https://yourstore.com/products/white-trainer' />
If it shows the collection URL instead, your theme's canonical logic needs correction. This is a theme liquid file edit — or can be handled through a Shopify SEO app that overrides the canonical output.
Collection pages have their own canonical tag consideration. If your store has pagination (/collections/shoes?page=2), the canonical should point to the first page (/collections/shoes) — not to the paginated URL. Many stores let paginated URLs self-canonicalise, which means Google may index and rank page 2 instead of the main collection page.
Additionally, if you use Shopify's filtering feature (Storefront API or Ajax filter apps), the filter combinations create URLs like /collections/shoes?filter.p.m.colour=white. These should be blocked via canonical tags or robots.txt, as thousands of filter combinations create crawl budget waste and near-duplicate content.
After implementing canonical fixes, submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and use the URL Inspection tool to request indexing for your most important product pages. Canonical corrections are not immediately reflected in rankings — it takes time for Google to recrawl the affected pages and update its index.
Monitor in Search Console over the following 4–8 weeks: you should see the collection-scoped URLs dropping from the index as Google consolidates to the canonical product URLs. Any external link authority that was split across both URLs will consolidate to the canonical, which typically improves rankings for those products.
Clickvertise Team
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