How do I stop Google from indexing extra pages?

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Topic summary

Issue: Shopify automatically generates pages when products are tagged, creating low-value content that may negatively impact SEO through indexing.

Solutions offered:

  1. Stop creating tags entirely to prevent these pages from being generated

  2. Add noindex meta tags to prevent search engines from indexing tag pages while still allowing them to be crawled

Implementation: Code snippets provided show how to:

  • Noindex all collection tag pages using Shopify’s Liquid template language
  • Selectively noindex specific tags (e.g., ‘sale’ or ‘clearance’) for more granular control

Important: Back up the current theme before making any code changes to the template files.

Summarized with AI on November 1. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi

ive read that Shopify creates extra pages when products are tagged, which are low value to Google and affect the SEO. How do I stop these pages being indexed?

2

One option is to stop creating tags, but if you want to continue creating tag pages then you can noindex them:

Example of how to noindex tags pages (back up your current theme before making changes)

{% if template contains 'collection' and current_tags %}
  <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">
{% endif %}

For more specific control (like only certain tags):

{% if template contains 'collection' %}
  {% if current_tags contains 'sale' or current_tags contains 'clearance' %}
    <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">
  {% endif %}
{% endif %}