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SEO & Discoverability for B2C Commerce
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) focuses on increasing non-paid search engine results for your site. Utilizing both creative and technical elements, you can improve search engine ranking and awareness, with the goal of driving more traffic to your site. External search engines (for example, Google) assign lower ranking to lengthy URLs with non-relevant keywords, multiple directory layers, and parameters. This topic applies to B2C Commerce.
We recommend viewing the SEO Platform Adoption Playbook.
There are several tasks before and after you create your sitemap that must be done to optimize your site for the organic (unpaid) results of external search engines.
AI-Powered Search and Discoverability
In addition to traditional search engines, AI-powered search and answer engines (such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews) now crawl commerce sites to power their responses. This emerging discipline is sometimes called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). Many of the same practices that improve traditional SEO also improve AI discoverability, including clean URL structures, well-formed sitemaps, and proper use of meta tags.
Key considerations for AI discoverability include:
- Robots.txt for AI crawlers: AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot request your robots.txt file to determine which pages they can access. Use the Custom robots.txt definition option in Business Manager to control access for these crawlers. See Robots.txt Files for B2C Commerce.
- Server-side rendering: AI crawlers typically don't execute JavaScript. Content that is only rendered client-side is invisible to these crawlers. Ensure that key product information (names, descriptions, prices) is present in the initial HTML response. B2C Commerce storefronts using SFRA and PWA Kit with server-side rendering are well positioned for this.
- Natural language content: AI models prioritize content written in clear, descriptive natural language over keyword-heavy or specification-only text. Write product descriptions that answer common customer questions.
- Structured HTML hierarchy: Use heading tags (
h1,h2,h3) to create a logical content hierarchy. Ensure each page has a singleh1for the primary subject (for example, the product name on a PDP) and uses lower-level headings to organize supporting content. - Structured data: Schema markup (such as JSON-LD for
Product,Offer, andAggregateRatingtypes) helps both traditional search engines and AI crawlers interpret your page content accurately.
Site Design Checklist
| Task | Role |
|---|---|
See the B2C Commerce Keyword Mapping Worksheet for additional information. |
Developer |
 Don't require the use of cookies to browse catalog pages. |
Developer |
|
Design pages to reference content assets that are managed in
Business Manager, so that changes don't require changes to site templates or
code. |
Developer |
See Site Performance for more information. |
Developer |
|
Design storefront-specific "404" error pages containing alternative
paths into the site or product catalogs if users browse to outdated URLs.
See the URL Redirects
topic. |
Developer |
Site Configuration Checklist
The first four tasks described in the checklist must be performed in the order described for the remaining steps to work correctly.
| Task | Role |
|---|---|
|
Set up and register all DNS and domain names. |
Developer |
|
Add the SiteMap pipeline to your application
cartridge using your preferred development tool (for example, the B2C CLI
or WebDAV). |
Developer |
|
Developer |
|
Developer |
|
Developer |
|
Developer |
|
Configure meta
tags. |
Developer |
|
Create keyword-rich body text, intra-site links, anchor text, and
image <alt> tags. |
Developer |
|
Remove duplicate content in your site. For example, remove two URLs
for the same page content. |
Developer |
|
Use static mapping or dynamic mapping rules to map legacy URLs. For
more information, see the URL
Redirects topic. |
Developer |
|
Identify inbound links on other sites and ask them to update with
new URLs. |
Developer |
Deployment Checklist
You must have completed all of the tasks in the site configuration checklist before starting the deployment checklist.
| Task | Role |
|---|---|
|
Map legacy URLs |
Merchant |
|
Identify inbound links on other sites and ask them to update with
new URLs. |
Merchant |
|
Configure "301" HTTP redirects from legacy URLs. |
Merchant |
|
Merchant |
|
Developer |
Use Business Manager to generate a robots.txt file or define a custom robots.txt that includes directives for both traditional and AI-powered crawlers. |
Developer |
|
Developer |
|
Validate HTML code to ensure that there are no errors that prevent
spiders from indexing the site. |
Developer |
Maintenance
After deployment, you must regularly undertake the following tasks.
| Task | Role |
|---|---|
|
Use Business Manager to add titles, descriptions, keywords, and
sitemap attributes for new categories and products. |
Merchant |
|
Use Business Manager to run the sitemap job to create updated
versions of the sitemap. |
Merchant |
|
Make directory listing submissions |
Merchant |
|
Use Analytics and B2C Commerce reports to analyze site traffic and
tune keywords and sitemap attributes. |
Merchant |
|
Use the URL redirects feature to create permanent 301 redirects for
obsolete B2C Commerce URLs to new B2C Commerce URLs. See the URL Redirects. |
Merchant |
