How to Submit Your Shopify Sitemap to Google Search Console (UAE Guide)

Submitting your Shopify sitemap to Google Search Console is the single most impactful indexing action available to a store owner in Dubai or the UAE. It tells Google exactly what pages exist on your store, triggers immediate crawling, and is the direct path from having 5 indexed pages to having 200+. It takes under five minutes to do and costs nothing. And yet the majority of UAE Shopify stores we audit have never done it.

This guide covers the complete process: setting up Google Search Console correctly for a UAE Shopify store, finding and submitting your sitemap, handling Arabic bilingual stores, understanding what the Coverage report tells you, and fixing the most common sitemap-related issues that prevent full indexing.

What a Sitemap Is and Why It Matters

A sitemap is an XML file that lists all the URLs on your website — every product page, collection page, static page, and blog post — in a structured format that Google can read. It tells Google: here is what exists on this store, here is when each page was last updated, and here is how important each page is relative to others on the site.

Without a submitted sitemap, Google discovers your pages by following links. Starting from your homepage, Google’s crawler follows every link it can find to discover new pages. For a Shopify store with hundreds of products and collections, this process is slow and incomplete — pages that are only accessible a few clicks deep may never be crawled, and pages that aren’t linked from any other page (orphan pages) will never be found at all.

With a submitted sitemap, Google knows about every URL on your store immediately. It still has to crawl and evaluate each URL, but the discovery step is done. This is why stores that submit their sitemaps see indexed page counts jump from single digits to 30–100+ within 2–3 weeks, while stores relying purely on link discovery may have the same 5–10 pages indexed after a year.

Step 1: Set Up Google Search Console for Your Shopify Store

Before you can submit a sitemap, you need a verified Google Search Console property for your domain. If you already have one, skip to Step 2.

Adding a Domain Property (Recommended)

Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with a Google account (create one if needed — a free Gmail account works). Click “Start now,” then “Add property.” Choose Domain as the property type. This covers your entire domain including all subdomains, all URL protocols (http and https), and all path prefixes. Enter your domain name without the protocol — just yourdomain.com.

Verifying Ownership via DNS Record

Google provides a TXT record value to add to your domain’s DNS settings. This is the most reliable verification method. Log into your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, domain.ae, Crazy Domains, or wherever your domain is registered). Go to DNS settings and add a new TXT record. Host field: @ (or leave blank, depending on your registrar). Value: the TXT record Google provided. TTL: default or 3600 seconds. Save the record.

DNS changes propagate in 15 minutes to 2 hours. Return to Search Console and click Verify. If propagation is complete, verification succeeds and the property is active. If verification fails, wait 30 minutes and try again.

Alternative: Verifying via HTML Tag in Shopify

If you don’t have access to your domain registrar’s DNS settings, you can verify via HTML tag. In Search Console, choose URL prefix property type (e.g., https://yourstore.com). Select HTML tag verification. Copy the <meta> tag provided. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store → Themes → Actions → Edit code → theme.liquid. Find the </head> closing tag and paste the meta tag just before it. Save. Return to Search Console and click Verify.

Step 2: Find Your Shopify Sitemap URL

Every Shopify store automatically generates a sitemap. You don’t need to create or install anything. Open a browser and go to: https://yourstore.com/sitemap.xml

You should see an XML file that lists four or more sub-sitemap links: sitemap_products_1.xml (all product pages), sitemap_collections_1.xml (all collection pages), sitemap_pages_1.xml (all static pages like About, FAQ, Contact), sitemap_blogs_1.xml (all blog articles). If your store has a large product catalog, there may be sitemap_products_2.xml, sitemap_products_3.xml etc. — Shopify limits each sub-sitemap to 5,000 URLs and creates additional numbered files as needed.

The main sitemap.xml file is your sitemap URL — this is what you submit to Google. When Google processes the main sitemap, it automatically follows the references to all sub-sitemaps and processes all the URLs they contain.

Step 3: Submit the Sitemap

In Google Search Console, with your verified property selected, click Sitemaps in the left navigation menu. In the “Add a new sitemap” field, paste your full sitemap URL: https://yourstore.com/sitemap.xml. Click Submit.

Google shows a success status within a few seconds. The Sitemaps section now shows your submitted sitemap with a status, the date it was last read by Google, and the number of URLs discovered. The “Discovered URLs” count shows how many URLs Google found in the sitemap — this should match approximately your total product + collection + page count. If it’s much lower, the sitemap may have only been partially read — check back in 24 hours.

Step 4: Submit the Arabic Sitemap (Bilingual UAE Stores)

If your Shopify store has an Arabic language version at /ar/ paths, your Arabic pages need to be indexed separately — and this requires a separate Google Search Console property and sitemap submission.

Adding the Arabic Property

In Google Search Console, click “Add property.” Choose URL prefix type. Enter: https://yourstore.com/ar/. Verify using the same DNS TXT record as the main property (domain-level verification covers all paths) or add a separate HTML tag for the /ar/ path. The Arabic property tracks performance data for your Arabic pages independently from your English pages — you’ll see Arabic search queries, Arabic impression data, and Arabic coverage separate from English data.

Submitting the Arabic Sitemap

Find your Arabic sitemap URL: https://yourstore.com/ar/sitemap.xml. Submit this in the Sitemaps section of the Arabic property in Search Console. This triggers crawling of all your Arabic product, collection, and page URLs.

Understanding the Coverage Report After Sitemap Submission

After submitting your sitemap, check the Coverage report (or Pages report in newer GSC versions) every few days. You’ll see the distribution of your pages across four states:

Valid (Indexed)

Pages successfully indexed. For a new store or a store with long-term indexing issues, this number should grow steadily over 2–4 weeks after sitemap submission. Each new valid page is a new entry point into your store from Google search.

Valid with Warnings

Indexed but with an issue worth investigating. The most common warning for Shopify stores: “Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt” — indicating a possible configuration conflict between robots.txt rules and the sitemap. Review your robots.txt to understand what’s being blocked.

Excluded

Pages Google has decided not to index. Click on each exclusion reason for details. The most common exclusions for UAE Shopify stores:

• “Duplicate without user-selected canonical”: Multiple URLs returning the same content. Most common on Shopify with product variant pages accessed via different URL paths. Google chooses one to index; others are excluded as duplicates.
• “Crawled — currently not indexed”: Google crawled the page and decided not to index it. Usually indicates thin content or near-duplicate content. Fix: add unique, substantive content to these pages.
• “Discovered — currently not indexed”: In Google’s crawl queue but not yet visited. Normal for new stores — Google processes sitemaps progressively based on crawl budget.
• “Blocked by robots.txt”: A Disallow rule is preventing crawling. Review robots.txt and remove inappropriate Disallow rules.
• “Submitted URL returned 404”: A URL in your sitemap no longer exists. Shopify updates sitemaps automatically, but there can be a delay. Wait 24–48 hours and recheck; if the 404 persists, the product or page may have been deleted without a redirect.

Errors

Pages with errors preventing crawling. Server errors (5xx), redirect loops, or connection timeouts. These need to be investigated and resolved — they indicate infrastructure problems rather than content issues.

Fixing Sitemap Errors and Improving Coverage

Duplicate Content Exclusions

If your Coverage report shows hundreds of pages in “Duplicate without user-selected canonical,” the most common cause is collection pages with identical descriptions. Write unique descriptions for each collection — this is the single most effective action for improving indexing of Shopify collection pages. Once unique descriptions are applied and Google re-crawls the pages, many of the previously excluded pages move to Valid status.

Thin Content Exclusions

For “Crawled — currently not indexed” pages: add substantive content. Product pages with no description (just a name and price) often fall into this category. Add a minimum 50–100 words of genuine product description, focusing on the product’s benefits, specifications, and relevance to UAE buyers.

Crawl Budget and Timing

For stores with many pages in “Discovered — currently not indexed” status: this is normal for stores with low domain authority. Google allocates a crawl budget based on domain authority — higher authority domains get crawled more frequently and more comprehensively. Building backlinks (getting other websites to link to your store) increases domain authority and speeds up crawl rates. Publishing new content regularly (blog articles) also signals to Google that the site is active, which can improve crawl frequency.

Monitoring Sitemap Health Over Time

Sitemap management is not a one-time task. As you add new products, remove discontinued items, and create new collection pages, your sitemap updates automatically. But your Search Console data needs to be checked regularly to catch issues.

Weekly: Check Coverage report for any sudden drops in valid pages (indicates something may have introduced a crawl blocker) or new errors appearing. Monthly: Review the Sitemaps section to verify the last read date and URL count. If the last read date is more than 2 weeks old, the sitemap may not be refreshing correctly — resubmit manually. Quarterly: Pull a Performance report to see which new pages have started generating impressions and clicks. This tells you which of your newly indexed pages are beginning to rank for relevant queries.

Amir Arsalan Sharifi AI Consultant & Marketing Psychologist · PhD · Dubai & MENA

Amir is the founder of PEESHEE Ai and a PhD-level marketing psychologist specializing in AI automation, Shopify strategy, and agentic AI systems for businesses across the MENA region.

View Full Profile