Shopify handles the technical SEO fundamentals competently out of the box. You get automatic XML sitemaps, canonical tags, SSL encryption, mobile-responsive themes, and the ability to edit title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, and H1s without touching code. For a merchant launching their first store, this baseline is significantly better than what you'd get on outdated platforms or custom builds without proper planning. The platform falls short in areas that matter for competitive e-commerce SEO. URL structures are rigid—you can't remove the /products/ or /collections/ prefixes without workarounds, and blog posts are stuck under /blogs/news/ by default. Shopify's robots.txt is restrictive and mostly locked down, limiting advanced crawl control. The platform also generates multiple URL variations for filtering and sorting that require careful canonicalization. Every app you install adds JavaScript and CSS files, and many inject render-blocking code that tanks Core Web Vitals if you're not selective. Page speed is the most common complaint. Shopify themes, especially those loaded with features and third-party apps, often score poorly on Google PageSpeed Insights. We've seen stores running 15-20 apps with mobile scores in the 20-30 range. Fixing this requires custom Liquid template work, lazy loading images properly, and ruthlessly auditing which apps are essential versus conveniences that cost you rankings. Shopify's blogging platform is functional but basic. You can't do advanced content hierarchies or custom post types without plugins, and internal linking has to be managed manually since there's no native related-posts system worth using. For Ottawa SEO clients on Shopify, we focus on theme optimization first, aggressive app pruning second, and structured data implementation third. Shopify supports JSON-LD for products and reviews, but most themes don't implement it comprehensively. The platform won't sabotage your SEO, but assuming it handles everything automatically leaves significant ranking potential on the table. You need someone who understands both Shopify's limitations and how to work within them strategically.