SEO Issue with Shopify Markets .com Domain Ranking in Google.ca Instead of .ca

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A Shopify store using Markets with separate .com (global) and .ca (Canada) domains is experiencing an SEO problem: the .com domain ranks in Google.ca search results for Canada-specific keywords, hurting Canadian market visibility.

Root cause: Shopify Markets shares meta titles, descriptions, and canonical tags across domains by default, preventing region-specific optimization.

Proposed solutions:

  1. Custom Liquid code - Dynamically set canonical tags based on the current domain by adding conditional logic to theme.liquid that outputs the appropriate canonical URL

  2. Google Search Console configuration - Add both domains as separate properties, set .ca to target Canada specifically, and leave .com as unlisted or global

These workarounds address Shopify’s limitation of not allowing per-domain meta tag customization out of the box. A screenshot was provided showing the .com domain appearing in Canadian search results.

Summarized with AI on October 26. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi ,

We’re currently facing a serious SEO challenge with our Shopify Markets and would really appreciate some guidance.

Our store operates using two primary domains:

The issue is that the .com version is ranking in Google.ca search results, even when users search using Canada-specific keywords. This is negatively impacting our visibility and organic performance in our core Canadian market.

From what we can tell, this appears to be caused by a limitation in the Shopify Markets configuration, where meta titles, descriptions, and canonical tags are shared across domains. This prevents us from optimizing content uniquely by region or domain, which is essential for proper international SEO.

We’ve attached a screenshot to illustrate what we’re seeing.

We’d greatly appreciate your support on the following:

  1. Is there a way to set domain-specific meta titles, descriptions, and canonical URLs within the same Shopify store?

  2. If not, what are the best practices or recommended solutions to ensure regional SEO works as intended?

Looking forward to any suggestions or potential workarounds.
Thanks for your help!

image (1).png
image (1).png1167×850 244 KB

2

Shopify does not let you edit meta titles/descriptions or canonical tags per domain out of the box.

Couple of ideas for you:

  1. Use custom Liquid to dynamically set the canonical based on domain. This overrides Shopify’s default canonical and forces the correct domain. In your theme.liquid :
  1. Add and verify both domains as separate properties in Search Console. Then:

  • In the .ca property, set the target country to Canada

  • Leave .com as “Unlisted” or target Global.

Hope that’s helpful, let me know if you run into any issues.