Google Doesn't index my pages for Canada!

SEO
1

I created two market and I didn’t use subfolder to prevent creating too many URL and having my blog posts repeating across regions to possibly damage my SEO.

Now products that I have specifically created for my Canadian customers are not being indexed since they are not being seen by Google search Console’s bots. Assuming the bots are placed in the US, and Shopify is automatically showing only US market and showing error 404.

I have geo-location off and it is not sending customers to their region based on IP. So they have to choose their region through drop down.

2

It sounds like your Canadian products aren’t being indexed because Shopify’s market setup without subfolders is only showing the US market by default. Even though geo-location is off, Googlebot may be treated like a US visitor, so it’s only seeing the US market and returning 404s for pages that exist only in the Canadian market.

A few ways to fix this:

  1. Use hreflang tags — Shopify automatically adds these when using multiple markets. Make sure the Canadian product pages have the correct hreflang="en-CA" tags so search engines know these pages exist for a different region.

  2. Create a canonical setup carefully — ensure the Canadian products aren’t marked as canonical to the US version. This lets Google index them separately.

  3. Submit a sitemap for the Canadian market — even without subfolders, Shopify lets you generate market-specific sitemaps. Submit the Canadian sitemap in Google Search Console so the bots can crawl and index these pages.

This setup allows you to avoid subfolders while still getting your Canadian products indexed correctly, without affecting your US SEO.

3

If you’re not using subfolders, does change of markets reflect in your URL at all?
How then Google is supposed to discover your canadian pages?

Good idea also is to share a link to your store so there is no guesswork.

4

Hi @customer.tute ,
Google can’t index your Canada-only products because you’re not using subfolders or separate URLs for each market. Since Googlebot crawls mostly from the US, it only sees the US version of your site. When it tries to open a Canada-only product, it gets a 404, so those pages never get indexed.

The market selector doesn’t help because Googlebot doesn’t click dropdowns.

The only fix: give each market its own URL - either by turning on subfolders (like /en-ca/) or by using separate domains. Once you do that, Google will be able to crawl and index your Canada-specific pages normally.

5

So for example if setting is on Canada: Tehran Sunset Postcard – Milad Tower Skyline (Crayon Style) – TŪTĒ

And if the setting is on Australia: https://tutegifts.com/products/tehran-milad-tower-holiday-cards-two-sided-painted-landmark-greeting-cards

but if the settings are not where they should be i get error 404.

I initially had subfolders. but that was hurting my blog writing. now that i combined all english markets my SEO got way better, in return i can’t index anything but those visible in the USA or Canada.

6

Well, yes, this way you only confuse search engines.

Their model is based on URL, and you have same URL for different content.
I doubt Google crawler would all of a sudden change the country (market) and then re-crawl again all the URLs it already has in the index.
Plus, without different URL hreflangs would not work, so…
Ideally, you should turn subfolders and hope that hreflangs will take care of maybe-dupes (as they should), but even if they do, it may take long time.

7

It sounds like Google is only crawling your default (US) market, which is why your Canadian products aren’t indexed. A few things to try:

  1. Use hreflang tags to tell Google which URLs are meant for Canada.

  2. Submit a sitemap specifically for your Canadian market in Google Search Console.

  3. Ensure your Canadian product URLs are accessible without any redirects or 404 errors for Googlebot.

  4. Consider temporarily enabling geo-location detection or canonical tags to guide bots.

This should help Google discover and index your Canadian products properly.

8

you’ve set up a solid structure, but the indexing issue may be tied to how your regional content is being surfaced to Google. When bots can’t access your Canada-specific pages, they won’t index them, especially if they’re being served 404s. You may want to check your market settings, ensure your Canada URLs are crawlable, and confirm that Google can access them without geo-based redirects. With a few adjustments, your regional pages should start indexing normally.