How does one change the meta description for the base Collections page?

Technical Q&A
1

Hi everyone!

  1. By default, Shopify uses the same meta description for a shop’s base Collections page (i.e., yourshopname.com/collections) as it does its home page.

  2. According to Matt Cutts (of Google fame), it’s generally poor SEO practice to have two pages use identical meta descriptions. To be clear, while it may not affect rankings, it could affect Click Through Rates.

  3. From my conversation with Shopify Support today, there’s currently no native Shopify method to give the base Collections page a unique meta description, and recommended I use a developer to make changes.

  4. Though not a Shopify Expert, I am a developer and over the years made a number of changes to our Shopify store’s code to get certain outcomes, both in CSS as well as Liquid code.

I simply need to be pointed to the right piece of code, including the specific variable to set and what to set it to (e.g., checking template for either ‘collection-list’ or ‘list-collections’, and setting meta name = “description” as has been suggested).

This question has been asked in different ways by different posters since 2017 :flushed_face:

So I’m putting it up once again just in case the Shopify Technical Team wish to chime in (thanks guys!) :smiling_face:

2 Likes
2

The “where is the code” differs depending on the theme so don’t expect a single guide to cover them all.

Did you want to post a link to your shop and drop the theme name here? That will get us started for tips that’s more specific for you.

If we look at pseudo code you’d be considering something like this:

{% if template == 'list-collections' %}
  show a custom description
{% else %}
  do the default things
{% endif %}
3

Hello Jason, and thank you for being the super-helpful person you’ve been to all of us forum-dwellers all these years — I remember your posts from when I first started using Shopify… 5 years ago!

The “where is the code” differs depending on the theme so don’t expect a single guide to cover them all.

Ah, thank you. I had (incorrectly) assumed that something as core as a meta description for a base Shopify page will be consistent across themes.

Did you want to post a link to your shop and drop the theme name here?

The shop is Urban Rhythm or https://urban-rhythm.myshopify.com and it uses Pixel Union’s Grid theme.

If we look at pseudo code you’d be considering something like this:

Indeed, that’s what many of the posts I linked to had in common.

Cheers and thank you.