Keep cart, checkout and account pages out of search results
Cart, checkout and account pages have no value in search results. See how to keep them out of the index and why it matters.
2 min read
Area
Store discovery
Severity
Low
Fix effort
Small
Stores failing
0%
Of 30 stores we scanned where this check applies, 0% fail it and 70% pass. See all benchmarks.
Cart, checkout and account pages are for shoppers who already have a session. They should not appear in search results. Keeping them out stops thin or private pages from competing with your products and wasting crawl effort.
Why it matters
A search result that lands on an empty cart is a bad experience. Crawlers also have limited time on your site. Spending it on pages that cannot rank leaves less for the products that can.
What the audit looks at
The audit checks that cart, checkout and account pages are kept out of search results.
What usually causes it
- A self-hosted store with no rules for utility paths
- A custom theme that removed the default noindex
- Faceted or session URLs that create many indexable variations
- A plugin that overrides default platform behaviour
How to fix it
Tell search engines to skip cart, checkout and account pages. The effort is small, usually a setting or a paste and under 30 minutes.
- Add Disallow lines for /cart, /checkout and /account to robots.txt, or mark those pages noindex.
On Shopify
- Shopify blocks these in its default robots.txt. If they are missing, a robots.txt.liquid in the theme has replaced the default; restore it.
On WooCommerce
- Yoast and Rank Math noindex cart, checkout and my-account by default; check their settings or your robots.txt editor.
How to check it yourself
- Search Google for site:yourstore.com/cart and similar paths.
- Read your robots.txt for Disallow lines covering them.
- View the cart page source and look for a noindex tag.
Frequently asked questions
Will blocking checkout hurt my sales?
No. Shoppers reach those pages from your site, not from search.
Is robots.txt or noindex better?
For pages you do not want listed, noindex is the stronger signal. Robots.txt stops crawling, and a blocked page can still be listed.
Related checks
Check your own store
See whether your store passes this check
Paste your store URL. The audit loads your pages in a real browser and shows the result for this check with the evidence behind it.