Sudden spike in Shopify Analytics for product recommendation URLs (`pr_prod_strat=pinned`) starting May 5

Data and Analytics
1

Hi Shopify team,

We are seeing a sudden and significant anomaly in Shopify Analytics starting on May 5, 2026.

Store: https://silksilky.com

Issue summary:
From May 5 to May 8, compared with Apr 28 to May 1, we found a large spike in landing page URLs that contain Shopify product recommendation tracking parameters, especially:

  • pr_prod_strat=pinned
  • pr_rec_id
  • pr_rec_pid
  • pr_ref_pid
  • pr_seq=uniform

Example URL:

We also see similar issues with search/recently-viewed style URLs containing:

  • _pos
  • _sid
  • _ss

Example pattern:

https://silksilky.com/products/xxx?_pos=5&_sid=xxx&_ss=r

Observed behavior:

  • These abnormal URLs started appearing on May 5.
  • Most of them show as Direct / no clear social or ad referrer.
  • Many rows have only 1 session, but hundreds or even thousands of pageviews.
  • Bounce rate is often 0%.
  • Added to cart rate is 0%.
  • Conversion rate is 0%.
  • These URLs had 0 sessions/pageviews in the comparison period.
  • Total abnormal pageviews increased significantly, around tens of thousands.

Examples from our report:

  • One pr_prod_strat=pinned URL: 424 pageviews, 1 session, 0 add-to-cart, 0 conversion.
  • Another pr_prod_strat=pinned URL: 392 pageviews, 1 session, 0 add-to-cart, 0 conversion.
  • One _pos/_sid/_ss URL: 2777 pageviews, 1 session, 0 add-to-cart, 0 conversion.

The affected modules are product detail page recommendation/search modules:

  • People Also Bought
  • More To Love
  • Recently Viewed

We understand that Shopify Product Recommendations API intentionally returns product URLs with pr_* parameters for recommendation conversion tracking. However, this behavior was normal before May 5, and the spike started suddenly on May 5.

Questions:

  1. Was there any Shopify Analytics, reporting, bot filtering, or metric definition change around May 5, 2026 that could affect landing page URLs, sessions, or pageviews?
  2. In the “Sessions by landing page” report, does “Pageviews” represent total pageviews within sessions that started from that landing page, rather than pageviews of that specific landing page URL only?
  3. Is it expected for product recommendation tracking URLs with pr_prod_strat=pinned to appear as landing pages?
  4. Could Search & Discovery pinned recommendations cause many unique pr_* URLs to be tracked separately in Analytics?
  5. Is there a recommended way to filter, normalize, or exclude Shopify recommendation tracking parameters from landing page reports?
  6. Could this be caused by bot/preload/prefetch traffic that Shopify is currently classifying as Direct or Human?

We would appreciate confirmation from Shopify staff whether this is expected behavior, a known reporting change, or something we should investigate in theme/app tracking.

Thanks.

2

@yuanjie .. From some days.. Most merchants are struggling with bot traffic, and it’s disrupting Shopify analytics.

I understand your concern and the many questions you have about filtering the traffic. But I don’t, so this is possible as the current reporting dashboard. Maybe Shopify will take some necessary steps and will improve the reposting dashboard and filter level reporting option in the upcoming days.

3

Have you seen other Shopify merchants experiencing the same issue recently?

5

Two layers worth separating in your data.

First, the metric definition. In Shopify Analytics, Sessions by landing page reports pageviews of sessions that started on that URL, not pageviews of that specific URL alone. So one user landing on a pr_prod_strat=pinned URL and browsing 423 more pages of your store shows up as 1 session, 424 pageviews on that landing row. With 0% bounce, that confirms a real user navigated further. The 1:N ratio itself isn’t unusual once you read the metric that way.

Second, the change worth digging into. The actual question is why pr_prod_strat URLs started appearing as landing pages around May 5 when they didn’t before. Three things to check:

Theme version. If your theme rendered recommendation links with raw pr_* params in canonical, social share cards, or sitemap, those URLs would now be shareable and could be hit directly via bookmarks, link previews, or aggregators. Check theme version history vs May 4-5.

Search & Discovery configuration. If Pinned Products is active, recommendation slots may have started serving pinned URLs across more product pages around that window.

Filter approach: segment your custom reports by Bounce Rate > 0 to keep engaged sessions, and exclude landing pages matching pr_prod_strat= via URL parameter exclusions if you’re on Plus.

What theme are you on, and did you push any theme or Search & Discovery changes around May 4-5?

6

Yes… @yuanjie …and try to fix’s is all possible way

7

What worries me most is stores accidentally optimizing around bad data.

Once analytics gets polluted, teams can start making real decisions based on traffic that was never meaningful in the first place.

8

This issues appears to be affecting multiple shopify stores since around May 5 and from what many merchants are reporting, the strange behaviour is mainly connected to shopify’s product recommendation and search parameters such as:

  • pr_prod_strat=pinned

  • pr_rec_id

  • pr_rec_pid

  • pr_ref_pid

  • pr_seq=uniform

  • _pos

  • _sid

  • _ss

The confusing part is seeing URLs with only 1 session but hundreds or even thousands of pageviews, often with 0% bounce rate, - add to cart activity and no conversions.

One important thing to understand is that in shopify Analytics, the “Session by landing page” report does not always mean that every pageview equals a new session. Shopify can attribute many pageviews to the original landing page url during the same session, which is why you may see very high pageviews attached to single landing page.

However, the real concern is why these pr_* recommendation URLs suddenly started appearing as landing pages in large number after May 5 when previously they were almost nonexistent.

Based on the discussion so far, the most likely causes are:

- A recent theme or app update exposing recommendation URLs more aggressively.

- Shopify Search & Discovery pinned recommendation logic becoming more active.

- Recommendation widgets like “People Also Bought,” “More To Love,” or “Recently Viewed” generating trackable URLs.

- Possible bot or crawler activity inflating analytics data.

- Analytics attribution changes inside Shopify reporting.

At this point, there does not appear to be an official confirmation or fix from shopify staff yet, so the investigation is still ongoing.

A few things you can check on your store:

- Review any theme, app, or Search & Discovery changes made around May 4–5.

- Check whether recommendation widgets recently became enabled or modified.

- Compare Shopify Analytics with GA4 or server logs to identify whether the traffic is real users or bots.

- Monitor if these URLs are being indexed or crawled unexpectedly.

- Filter suspicious traffic patterns by country, device type, or referrer source.

For now, this looks more like an analytics/reporting anomaly tied to recommendation parameters rather than a direct SEO or conversion issue, but it is still worth monitoring closely until shopify provides more clarity.

9

this looks like a Shopify-side change to how product recommendations are tracked internally, not actual bot traffic or a problem with your store. the pr_prod_strat=pinned parameters are Shopify’s internal recommendation engine tagging, and if they changed how those URLs get logged in analytics it would show up as a sudden spike exactly like what you’re seeing.

i’d check whether your actual session count and conversion rate stayed consistent during that period. if yes, it’s just a tracking/reporting change and your real traffic is fine. if you want cleaner data, you can set up a filter in GA4 to exclude URL parameters that start with pr_ so your landing page reports aren’t cluttered with these recommendation variants. a few other stores reported the same thing around the same dates so it’s almost certainly platform-wide.

10

Hi, @yuanjie

I would separate two questions here.

First, “Sessions by landing page” can attribute all pageviews in the session back to the original landing URL. So 1 session and hundreds of pageviews does not always mean that exact URL was refreshed hundreds of times.

Second, the real issue is why recommendation URLs started becoming landing pages. I would check:

  1. Theme changes around May 4-5.
  2. Search & Discovery changes, especially pinned recommendations.
  3. Whether recommendation URLs with pr_* parameters are being rendered into shareable links, canonical tags, product cards, or sitemap-like areas.
  4. GA4 landing page data for the same period to see if it matches Shopify.

For reporting, I would group/filter URLs by stripping query parameters where possible, otherwise these pr_* URLs will fragment the report badly.