SEMrush and Google Search Console Errors

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A Shopify store owner running since 2009 reports drastically declining sales despite two years of SEO work by a hired company. The site shows multiple technical issues:

Key Problems Identified:

  • Identical meta keywords across all pages, products, and collections
  • 500+ pages not indexed by Google (discrepancy between sitemap and indexed pages)
  • Previous SEO company created irrelevant content (car stereo posts for a two-way radio accessories site)
  • Suspected issues with Boost SEO app based on negative reviews

Guidance Provided:

  • Prioritize Google Search Console (GSC) errors over SEMrush findings, as GSC directly impacts Google rankings
  • SEMrush and GSC show different data because they use different crawling methods—discrepancies are normal
  • Focus on: submitting accurate sitemap, checking robots.txt isn’t blocking pages, ensuring fast load times
  • Consider alternative SEO apps like YOAST or Plug in SEO

Current Status: The owner seeks recommendations for apps or freelancers but has limited budget due to poor sales. The discussion remains open with the owner requesting specific guidance on identifying keyword duplication sources.

Summarized with AI on October 27. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hello, I need some advice. My site is www.earphoneguy.com. I am a novice when it comes to SEO. My site has been running since 2009 and moved to Shopify in 2016. Sales were great and now they are absolutely horrible. I had a company doing SEO for the better part of the last two years. While they were supposedly doing all of this work, my rankings did not improve much and neither did my traffic. I started looking at their blog posts and they were posting about car stereo for the name Kenwood and I sell Kenwood two way radio accessories. Example of one issue, when I look at source in Chrome, my keywords are the same for every page, every product, every collection. Something is off.

I had an SEMrush report ran and looking at Google Search Console it appears I have issues. One poison just told me: “website sitemap and search result indexed pages and there is difference of 500 pages. so there is 500+ products only that are not indexed and many other pages and collection as well.”

I do not know all of the inner workings of SEO. I feel the look and functionality of the site is good, but I just need traffic. Any recommendations on where to start over? Unfortunately money is extremely tight due to lack of sales. Am I allowed to ask for recommendations on apps or freelancers that can help with this?

Thanks in advance for any assistance. I just need some help..

-Vern

2

Thank you so much for the reply! Is there a way to find out where the keyword duplication is and where it is coming from? I have been using Boost SEO and I read reviews that say Boost could be causing a lot of issues. Any recommendations on YOAST or Plug in SEO over Boost?

Thanks again!

3

It’s totally normal to see different errors or issues reported between SEMRush and Google Search Console because they work differently.

Google Search Console (GSC) shows you how Google actually crawls and indexes your site — so the errors there directly affect your Google search performance. SEMRush, on the other hand, is more like a bot crawling your site and it might pick up on technical things that Google doesn’t always treat as critical.

When GSC flags errors, those should be your priority because Google uses that data to rank your pages. SEMRush’s issues are useful for spotting potential problems or SEO opportunities, but they’re not always urgent fixes.

A few things to check to reduce errors: make sure your sitemap is accurate and submitted in GSC, your robots.txt file isn’t blocking important pages, and your site loads quickly without errors. Sometimes SEMRush will report broken links or duplicate content that Google won’t really penalize, so focus on what GSC says first.

Also, keep in mind that data in both tools can be delayed or updated at different times, so don’t panic if they don’t match perfectly.

fix Google Search Console errors first, use SEMRush to dig deeper and improve your site overall.