Stop Google from indexing your out-of-stock pages

Large catalogs accumulate dead product URLs. Google still crawls them, ranks them as low quality, and quietly drags down the rest of your store. This app fixes that in one click — no developer needed.

Install from Shopify App Store

Theme app extension · No code · Works with any theme

Auto-noindex sold-out products

When every variant is out of stock, Google is told to skip the page. The page itself stays online, so internal links keep working.

Auto-reverses when stock returns

No batch jobs, no manual sync. The moment a variant has stock again, Google crawlers see the product as indexable.

Per-product override

Have an evergreen product you want indexed even when sold out? Flip a metafield (seo.force_index = true) and it stays in search forever.

How it works

  1. Install the app to your store
  2. Open your theme editor → App embeds → toggle on "Hide out-of-stock products from Search"
  3. That's it. The app adds <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"> only to product pages where every variant is unavailable.

Google typically reflects the change within a few days to a couple of weeks. To speed it up, request re-crawl in Google Search Console.

FAQ

Does this break my store?

No. The app does not redirect, hide, or modify any product page. It only adds a meta tag in the page <head> that tells Google "don't index this." Customers see the same page; sales links keep working.

Why noindex,follow and not noindex,nofollow?

follow tells Google to still crawl outgoing links — so your collection pages, related products, and home links keep getting authority signals from the sold-out page. It's the SEO-correct default.

What about products that are temporarily out for one day?

If stock returns before Google's next crawl (usually 1–7 days), Google never picks up the noindex and nothing changes. The app is self-healing.

I want a specific product indexed even when sold out

Set the product's metafield seo.force_index to true. The app will skip that product. Useful for iconic / collector items where the page itself has SEO value.

Is the page hidden from customers too?

No. The page URL stays accessible. Existing checkout flows, wishlists, and emails that link to the product still work. Only Google Search results are affected.

Does it work with multi-variant products?

Yes. The app only adds noindex when every variant is unavailable. If even one variant has stock, the product is indexable.

Does this app collect any data?

No. The app is a pure Liquid snippet served via Shopify's theme app extension system. There is no backend that receives or stores data about your store. See our Privacy Policy.