Managing Shopify collections to avoid SEO issues and duplicate content.
Deleting a collection: removes it from menu/navigation and is irreversible. It also deletes the collection’s SEO settings. Google may still have the deleted page indexed; submitting your sitemap can help update search results.
Making a collection inactive: adjust collection availability (Products > Collections > select collection > Manage under availability) to hide it from the Online Store. Per the guidance, hidden collections are not indexable by Google. Screenshots were provided to show where to change availability.
SEO considerations: The goal is to prevent duplicate content. If you don’t want a page to rank, hiding it (rather than deleting) can prevent indexing, while deletion may leave residual indexing until Google updates.
Open questions/outcomes: Redirects were not addressed; the user notes redirects aren’t possible because the pages aren’t 404. No final resolution; the recommended action is to contact Shopify live support to review the store’s specific setup and advise on the best approach.
hi! i have a question.
if i delete a collection on my store, will they be considered non-existent from that point onwards? Will redirection be needed for them if they are not indexed? Should I just delete them? Can make them inactive rather than deleting?
Hey @planetjuniorseo .
Thanks for reaching out.
Those are great questions! If you choose to delete a collection that is available on your online store will remove the menu navigation for the specific collection. With that being said, once a collection is deleted it cannot be restored.
Alternatively, if you would like to make a collection inactive and not appear on your online store, you can make changes to the collection availability. In other words, you can hide the collection from your online store.
To make changes to the collection availability, you will need to navigate to Products > Collections. Select the collection you wish to make these changes to and select Manage on the collection availability section. I took a screenshot from my test store to show you the section I am referring to:
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks for the detailed answer.
But I have some questions.
Does deleting the collection and removing it from the navigation effect SEO if I don’t want to rank that page? Will it affect site’s SEO?
Secondly, does making it unavailable hide it from Google crawler?
Actually, my target is to do something to these collections so that it won’t affect SEO of the site because they were creating duplicate content? What will be the best option as redirecting is not possible because they are not 404 pages. Please guide me.
Thanks in advance.
Hey @planetjuniorseo .
Thanks for the quick response.
If you delete a collection from the online store, it will also delete the collection SEO. It is possible that Google may have the deleted collection still indexed and appearing on the Google search results. If that is the case, you can find and submit your sitemap to have the SEO for the online store updated.
When you hide a collection from the online store, Google will be unable to index the collection page.
My suggestion would be to reach out to our live support, as this will allow the Support Advisor to see the internal setup of collections used. Since I am unable to authenticate you over the Community forums due to the sensitive information that would need to be shared, I am unable to look into the specifics. You can reach out to our live support by logging into your online store using the Contact Us page.
Once you successfully login, you will be directed to the Help Center. Select the topic that you would like assistance with to locate the options to Get Support and speak with a Support Advisor about the collections.
Let me know what you think.
