Impact of Product Categories vs. Collections

[FeelingLikeASir]

We're restructuring our website and utilizing categories, which most often are pre-filled with the suggested category, I typically don't have a situation where this needs to be changed. Our team has had discussions as to whether we need to match our collections as closely as possible to the categories to work with Google Shop and other 3rd party apps.

My understanding so far is that this isn't necessary. I understand it's best practice to have a good standard for what goes into each collection, but as far as I know, collections don't impact whether products show up on Google Shop or impact 3rd party apps. They certainly can impact search and SEO.

Please let me know if I'm off base in my understanding. A fleshed out explanation of how these work independently and influence each other would be a wonderful added bonus.

[EcomGraduates · Accepted solution]

You're right. Collections in Shopify are primarily for organizing your store and improving user experience and SEO. They don't directly impact Google Shopping or 3rd party apps. Google Shopping relies more on product data like titles, descriptions, and categories rather than your store's collections.

Keeping collections organized is good for your site’s SEO and user navigation but isn’t necessary for external integrations like Google Shop.