PrestaShop SEO audit: a checklist for versions 8.1 and 9
A PrestaShop SEO audit is a review of 20 points in four areas: technical settings, content, catalogue structure and errors. You can check most of them in the PrestaShop 8.1 or 9 back office and in Google Search Console. Start with the 301 canonical redirect, the sitemap and duplicate titles, because these problems usually affect hundreds of pages at once.
Author: The TellMyShop team. A guide for PrestaShop store owners: the cause, the manual fix and the same work in a chat conversation.
Last updated: · 5 min read
What does a PrestaShop store SEO audit cover?
Four areas, checked in this order. Settings first, because one switch in the back office affects every URL. Then content: titles, Google descriptions and image descriptions. Next, the structure of categories and features. Finally errors, which show the effects of earlier changes.
The checklist applies to PrestaShop 8.1+ and 9 with the Classic theme or one derived from it. It works without any module. At the end we show how to run the same audit in a conversation with the chat.
What does the SEO audit checklist look like?
The whole checklist fits in one table. Paths follow the English back office.
| # | Point | Where to check | Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Friendly URL | Shop Parameters > Traffic & SEO | on |
| 2 | Redirect to the canonical URL | Shop Parameters > Traffic & SEO | 301, not 302 |
| 3 | SSL | Shop Parameters > General | on for all pages |
| 4 | Debug mode | Advanced Parameters > Performance | off |
| 5 | Maintenance | Shop Parameters > General, Maintenance tab | store enabled for everyone |
| 6 | robots.txt | store address/robots.txt | does not block categories or products |
| 7 | Sitemap | sitemap module, Search Console | up to date and submitted |
| 8 | Language versions | page source in each language | hreflang pairs for every language |
| 9 | Cache | Advanced Parameters > Performance | on, without forced compilation |
| 10 | Product structured data | Rich Results Test | one Product block with a price |
| 11 | Titles (meta title) | product SEO tab, categories, pages | unique, about 60 characters |
| 12 | Google descriptions (meta description) | the same places | 120 to 160 characters, no duplicates |
| 13 | Empty product descriptions | Catalog > Products | every active product has a description |
| 14 | Category descriptions | Catalog > Categories | a short text above the product list |
| 15 | Image descriptions (alt) | product page, images | every image describes the shot |
| 16 | Category tree | Catalog > Categories | a product at most 3 to 4 clicks from the home page |
| 17 | Features | Catalog > Attributes & Features | no duplicates such as “black” and “Black” |
| 18 | 404 errors | Stats, pages not found | the most frequent URLs redirected |
| 19 | Error log | Advanced Parameters > Logs | no recurring errors |
| 20 | Indexing | Search Console, Pages report | no new exclusion groups without a reason |
The settings in points 1 and 2 are described in the PrestaShop documentation on SEO and URLs, and points 4 and 9 in the performance documentation. The targets for titles and descriptions come from Google's guides on titles and snippets. The product data fields are listed in the Product structured data guide.
Where do you start when there are many problems?
With whatever affects the most pages at once. Fixing one setting repairs a thousand URLs, and fixing one description repairs one product.
- Settings in points 1 to 5. A 302 redirect or a forgotten maintenance mode hurts the whole store.
- The sitemap and robots.txt. Google has to know where the products are and be able to reach them.
- Duplicate titles and descriptions. After an import or duplicating products, this usually means hundreds of pages. Copying the title when duplicating is a known PrestaShop behaviour, described in an issue on GitHub.
- 404 errors with traffic. Redirect URLs that get visits to the closest equivalent.
- Content of the best-selling products. Empty descriptions, descriptions copied from the wholesaler, missing alt text.
- The rest of the catalogue, category by category.
Each of these topics has its own article on the blog. You will find the list in the guide to PrestaShop SEO.
Which part of the checklist will the chat check for you?
You ask for a store review, and your chat (Claude or ChatGPT) reads data straight from the store and puts together a list of fixes, most urgent first. This part works in TellMyShop Free, also with a free chat account. The module changes nothing at this point.
The chat checks the technical settings in points 1 to 5, 9 and 19. It reviews titles, Google descriptions, empty descriptions and images without alt text in products, categories and information pages. It shows the category tree with empty categories and the most frequent 404 errors. It also opens a given page like a browser and reports the status, canonical, hreflang pairs and structured data. That reading does not replace Google's test. The chat cannot see the Search Console indexing report, so you check that point yourself.
You: Check my store for SEO and tell me what to fix first.
Your chat: The settings are fine except one: the redirect to the canonical URL uses code 302. Content: 212 products have a duplicate title in 14 groups, 57 have no description, 1,930 images have no alt text. First the redirect setting, then the duplicates in Work Gloves (42 products). An example title fix:
I'll save the title fixes in TellMyShop Pro, with a preview before saving.
Card status: waiting for your “yes”old version: Work gloves | Store
new version: Nitrile work gloves, size 9 (L) | Store
Fixes work in TellMyShop Pro, straight after licence activation. Each one starts with a preview and is saved only after your approval. You undo content changes, redirects and alt texts from the change history. The exception is a change to a product or category URL: the change history does not undo it, and going back means another URL change to the previous one. You change the settings in points 1 to 5 yourself in the back office.
You can take your first request from the use cases full store SEO audit and first store review. For 404 errors, go to the article on 404 errors in PrestaShop. For duplicates, the article on duplicate meta titles will help. You can start the audit with TellMyShop Free.
Questions and answers
How often should I run an SEO audit of a PrestaShop store?
A full audit is worth doing once a quarter and always after a bigger change: a PrestaShop update, a theme change, a migration or a large import. Between audits it is enough to review the 404 report, the indexing report in Google Search Console and the error log every month. Those three places show fastest that something has broken.
Is a missing meta title on a product an error?
Not always. When the field is empty, PrestaShop uses the product name, so the page has a title. Duplicates are more urgent: dozens of products with the same title or description in Google. Fill in empty titles along the way, starting with the products that sell best and get the most visits.
Does an SEO audit with the chat change anything in my store?
No. The audit part only reads data, so it works in TellMyShop Free, which saves nothing. Fixes are in TellMyShop Pro. Each starts with a preview, is saved after your approval and goes into the change history. The exception is a URL change, which you reverse with another URL change.
Which PrestaShop versions does this checklist cover?
The checklist and admin paths apply to PrestaShop 8.1 and newer and to PrestaShop 9. We assume the Classic theme or a theme based on it. Older versions have some options in other places. The TellMyShop module also runs on PrestaShop 8.1 and 9, on a single store.
How long does a store SEO audit take?
It depends on the size of the catalogue and the number of problems. You can check the technical settings in the back office in one sitting. Reviewing content takes the most time, because titles, descriptions and alt texts have to be checked in every product. That is why this part is worth handing to a tool that reads the whole catalogue at once.
PrestaShop is a registered trademark of PrestaShop SA. Claude is a trademark of Anthropic PBC. ChatGPT and OpenAI are trademarks of OpenAI. TellMyShop is not affiliated with these companies.