Theme Issues / Shopify Support Issues

[ssb123]

Hi all!  I am desperate for help at this point so hopefully someone here can help.

After 12 years with our previous theme we finally decided to update. We purchased a theme through Shopify and then tried to hire the theme developer to help us install it to make sure there were no hiccups and that it went smoothly as well as customize a few things. The theme developer said they did not offer this but have a list of experts that do. We hired an expert on the list to customize some things on the theme and then hired him to help us migrate everything and make sure no issues. This was mid to end of April. 

Since installing the new theme we have been dropping urls on our google console as well as failing core web vitals. It seems there are LCP issues and more. My concern is why is shopify selling a theme that fails core web vitals and all of our links on google console went from good to poor. In addition to this happening our indexed pages have dropped tremendously and our urls are 20% of what they were. We are 6 weeks later and still no resolve. 

Finally after much convincing the theme developer tells us that their engineer has found issues and they will come out with an update "soon" which does not help us. We asked them to help us in the meantime since we are having so many issues. Their response was that if they fix the LCP issue is will cause a CLS issue. 

The expert says he can fix for another $850 but if the theme developer says there is no fix how can he fix it? I do not want to throw more money away. 

In addition to all of this our schema app is not working so many items in our google console say unnamed. Their engineers have tried to find out what is wrong and tell us that something in the theme is blocking their app. 

At  this point we have paid for a new theme and an expert to make sure it goes well only to have problem after problem. Shopify support hasn't been helpful and the most recent response was something about they assume this is a tiktok app issue. Huh? There is no tiktok issue - this has nothing to do with tiktok. I have asked multiple times to have this escalated to no resolve. Having been with shopify for over 14 years I am so disappointed in how far support has fallen. How do we get someone to help and what can we do at this point? Who knew changing themes would cause so many issues.

Has anyone else ever had something like this happen? If so, how did you get through to shopify for someone to help or reach out to the theme developer on your behalf since they are selling the theme. If the theme fails core web vitals on google it should not be for sale. I was under the understanding that there are certain benchmarks that must be met in order to have a theme for sale on shopify. That is clearly not the case. Just frustrated with chasing someone to help and getting no where. Don't know whether to pay someone to fix if there is no fix plus if an update comes out at some point all of the customizations will be wiped when the update is installed correct?

[LuffyOnePiece]

Hi @ssb123 ,

As we have installed the new theme, most of the backlinks have been removed.

At this point, I suggest you to invest more on the SEO.

Switching back to the old theme can be one option.

These are the things that developer should mention before installing the new theme.

If these thing also doesn't help, You can go with Dawn theme.

[ssb123]

We are told by app that new theme is blocking but no one knows why. SEO Manager support hasn’t responded yet after many attempts to get their assistance.

From my understanding we can’t switch back to old theme. It was super old (12 years) and once switch to a 2.0 can’t switch back. Is that not correct?

[LuffyOnePiece]

Hi @ssb123 ,

We can switch back to the old theme and it depends on how you have install the theme.

I guess the old theme is on draft and new install theme is published. we can publish the old theme too.

Thank you

[ssb123]

Invest more on SEO how? With these issues with the new theme our urls have dropped and things have progressively continued to get worse. We have had both SEO Manager and SchemePlus for a long time as apps on our site. Not sure what is best or who is best to work on SEO - any recommendations? There are so many options and daily email solicitations I am concerned about causing more issues to deal with. 

[tim]

Would you mind sharing a store URL (given you still have this theme published)? What theme is this?

A couple of things to consider in general:

Shopify does not support third-party themes, only the ones developed by Shopify (free ones). Themes accepted to the theme store must fulfil a number of requirements, but other then that theme developers have some freedom as to how they want their theme to work.

Since you've bought your theme, the theme developer should be contacted to fix errors. However, there may be some disagreement as to what is an error and what may be considered a feature.

And yes, Apps may significantly effect pagespeeed.

Theme developer may not be able to implement the fix/functionality you're after for a number of reasons, for example it may not be financially reasonable or they may believe that the problem is caused by third-party (say App) and a very rare use-case.

This is why hired dev/expert may be able to offer a custom solution for you.

[ssb123]

The theme is the issue. It took weeks but this was finally the outcome. Their theme had LCP issues and more which caused it to fail core web vitals and Google to change all of our URLs from good to poor. They said to wait for an update but that doesn’t help the customizations we have paid for that will be gone with doing an update once it’s available. It shouldn’t have been for sale if it had these issues. Not only did we spend money on the theme but also on the expert to help migrate things over and customize a bit. The theme is also blocking seo apps we have had for years. The app engineers cannot figure out why and our Google console just keeps dropping my URLs. We asked the engineers of the theme to fix issues but they said if they fix the LCP issue then it will cause a CLS issue. It’s been very hard to get a response often taking a week or so which is frustrating as this is an issue and we need to nip it in the bud.

sassyshortcake.com is our shop

Thanks so much!

[tim]

For LCP I'd pay attention to the country selector.

It's located at the very top of the page and includes 237 images.

Despite having loading="lazy" they are still loaded before your LCP image. 

Loading and processing them takes a lot of time and chokes network connection and all this for nothing because they are not immediately visible!

I'd modify theme code to not include images in drop-downs.

Disabling those images in my developer console gave me half-second to 1 second faster load and LCP on desktop with fast network.
Which is a very good improvement.

As for SEO -- most themes now include a set of LD-JSON snippets. The app you're using outputs its own set of these snippets so oftentimes you end up with duplicate (but different) microdata.

This is not good as search engines would be confused which one to use, or show 2, say, products on one page with the same-ish title. If this is the root of your problems, then it's on SEO app people and not the theme fault.

Unfortunately, the problem of theme modifications vs theme updates is hard to solve (if at all) and would require proper cooperation with the dev who implemented those mods.

[ssb123]

Thank you! The theme developer has since come out with a major update to address the header and LCP issues with the one we bought and installed. I am curious if the update will take care of this. Either way we have to pay to have it customized again as well which is so upsetting. This has made what was supposed to be a positive change of a new website to a huge issue requiring more time and money to no fault of our own. I am just ehhh about it today - ignore me. Thank you for your time to look at things and make suggestions. It is appreciated more than you know. 

[ssb123]

Which SEO app or company is the best in your opinion? I would love to hire someone to take a look at it and fix it for us but there are so many choices and people soliciting these services I get paralyzed by it sometimes because I don't want it to cause anymore issues. Currently we have SEO Manager installed but their support is very slow. We also have schema plus but aren't sure if two are needed especially if the new theme starts performing the way it should. Our google console continues to look worse each day since installing the theme. 

[tim]

Yeah, I feel your pain.

When re-doing the updates (not familiar with the theme enough to tell what they are) request from your dev to make them as little intrusive and as consolidated as possible and well-document them. This may allow you to do it yourself next time, or use another dev if current is not available.

Also ask for their opinion on the country selector and whether theme update takes care of this.

Unfortunately, I do not have a SEO agency/person to recommend -- have not worked with one I was happy with so far 😞

[ssb123]

The theme is by Troop Themes and it is called Blockshop. 

Our current version: Blockshop 9.3.1 

Last week they put out an updated version to address the issues in the theme causing it to fail core web vitals and have issues with LCP. 

Release notes

Version 10.0.0 June 12, 2024

Includes a redesigned Announcement Bar with sticky option, enhanced Header with flexible layout options and customizable megamenus, expanded typography settings, improved product thumbnail navigation, and new social icons for Tumblr and Snapchat. Enjoy faster loading times and a smoother user experience.

Added

• Redesigned Announcement bar with page or device specific blocks and sticky option
• Added Split announcements section to Header group
• Redesigned Header with new layout options, fixed and transparency settings, and 4 megamenu blocks: image, promotion, blog, and product list
• Added additional global typography size settings
• Added Tumblr and Snapchat social icons
• Added option to remove CTA on Blog page and Featured blog section

Changed

• Product page thumbnail view will now scroll thumbnails into view as they're clicked
• Added support for a fourth block to the Footer section

Fixes and other improvements

• Social icons will now fall back to brand settings populated inside Shopify settings
• Added new hover options for social media icons
• Improved chevron animations on disclosures and header menu
• Theme will now preload fonts to improve CLS scores with large line-height fonts
• Styles changed to one main bundle to improve FCP scores
• Countdown's default value (DD-MM-YYYY) will now count down to midnight local time