Shopify is SEO-friendly enough to rank well if you configure it properly, but it's not perfect. The platform handles basics like mobile responsiveness, SSL certificates, automatic sitemaps, and canonical tags without manual intervention. Page speed is acceptable on standard themes, typically scoring 40–70 on mobile and 70–90 on desktop in Google PageSpeed Insights, which is workable but not exceptional. The real friction comes from limitations you can't easily change. Product and collection URLs are locked into /products/ and /collections/ structures, and you can't remove /blogs/ from blog post URLs without hacks or apps that often break. You get one H1 per page and limited schema markup control unless you edit Liquid templates directly. Heavy reliance on apps is common, and each one adds JavaScript and CSS that slow your site, sometimes dropping Core Web Vitals scores into poor territory. We've seen stores with 8+ apps running 3+ second load times, which directly impacts conversion and rankings. Shopify also generates duplicate content by default through variant URLs and collection sorting parameters, requiring careful use of canonical tags and sometimes custom Liquid edits to manage. Image optimization is manual unless you use third-party apps, and CDN performance varies by plan tier. That said, Shopify's reliability, security, and ease of use make it a strong choice for most e-commerce businesses. At Ottawa SEO, we optimize Shopify stores by choosing lightweight themes, minimizing apps, compressing images through tools like TinyPNG before upload, writing unique product descriptions, and using structured data apps sparingly. For stores with 500+ SKUs or complex SEO requirements like multi-region targeting, we sometimes recommend headless Shopify or custom platforms, but for most cases, Shopify delivers sufficient SEO capability if you manage its weaknesses actively. It won't sabotage your rankings, but you need to work within its constraints rather than expect WordPress-level flexibility.