robots.txt for Shopify: Edit, Customize, and Block AI Bots

Shopify's robots.txt was locked for years. A lot of guides still say you can't edit it. That stopped being true in mid-2021. Since then, every Shopify store can fully customize robots.txt through a Liquid template called robots.txt.liquid. Here is how to do it without breaking Shopify's defaults, plus copy-paste rules for blocking AI training crawlers.

Step 1: Open the Theme Code Editor

1. Shopify admin → Online Store → Themes
2. Find your live theme and click Edit code (or the three-dot menu → Edit code on newer admin layouts)
3. In the left sidebar under "Templates", click Add a new template
4. In the "Create a new template for" dropdown, choose robots.txt
5. Shopify will create templates/robots.txt.liquid prefilled with the default content

If robots.txt.liquid already exists in your theme, open that file directly instead of creating a new one.

Step 2: Understand the Default Template

When you create robots.txt.liquid, Shopify prefills it with something like this:

{%— for group in robots.default_groups —%}
  {{- group.user_agent }}

  {%— for rule in group.rules —%}
    {{ rule }}
  {%— endfor —%}

  {%— if group.sitemap != blank —%}
    {{ group.sitemap }}
  {%— endif —%}
{%— endfor —%}

This loop prints Shopify's default rules — blocking /admin, /cart, /checkout, /orders, and various search and collection filter URLs. Keep this loop. It is what prevents search engines from indexing your checkout flow and internal URLs.

Step 3: Add Custom Rules On Top

The safe pattern is: keep the default loop, then append your custom rules after it.

Block all known AI training crawlers

{%— for group in robots.default_groups —%}
  {{- group.user_agent }}
  {%— for rule in group.rules —%}
    {{ rule }}
  {%— endfor —%}
  {%— if group.sitemap != blank —%}
    {{ group.sitemap }}
  {%— endif —%}
{%— endfor —%}

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /

User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: FacebookBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /

Save the file. Shopify deploys it immediately. Visit https://yourstore.com/robots.txt in a browser and you should see the default Shopify rules followed by your AI bot blocks.

Block only a specific path (like a private collection)

If you want to keep crawlers out of one specific URL path (say a /private-collection), add a rule inside the default group loop:

{%— for group in robots.default_groups —%}
  {{- group.user_agent }}
  {%— for rule in group.rules —%}
    {{ rule }}
  {%— endfor —%}
  {%— if group.user_agent == 'User-agent: *' —%}
Disallow: /collections/private-collection
  {%— endif —%}
{%— endfor —%}

This adds your custom Disallow to the User-agent: * group that Shopify already generates, instead of creating a parallel group that competing crawlers might interpret differently.

Remove a specific default Disallow rule

Sometimes you actually want Google to crawl something Shopify blocks by default (for example, a filtered collection URL that drives real traffic). Use a conditional inside the loop:

{%— for group in robots.default_groups —%}
  {{- group.user_agent }}
  {%— for rule in group.rules —%}
    {%— unless rule.directive == 'Disallow' and rule.value contains '/collections/' —%}
      {{ rule }}
    {%— endunless —%}
  {%— endfor —%}
{%— endfor —%}

This skips any Disallow rule matching /collections/. Be careful — Shopify blocks those paths for a reason (filter parameter bloat in search results), so only do this if you know you want it.

Step 4: Verify It Actually Works

1. Open https://yourstore.com/robots.txt in a browser. You should see Shopify's default rules plus your new additions.
2. Confirm the defaults are still there. If Disallow: /admin, Disallow: /cart, and Disallow: /checkout are missing, something is wrong with your loop — restore from backup and try again.
3. Run the AI Readiness Checker against your store URL. It will tell you exactly which AI bots are blocked.
4. In Shopify admin, go to Online Store → Preferences → check that your sitemap URL is set correctly (Shopify generates this automatically, you cannot edit it).

Things Shopify Merchants Ask

Does blocking AI crawlers hurt my Google Shopping listings?

No. Google Shopping uses your product feed, not robots.txt AI rules. Google-Extended controls Gemini training data only — it has zero effect on product search, shopping ads, or organic rankings.

What about Shopify's own app crawlers?

Shopify runs internal crawlers for features like search suggestions and app integrations. These are not subject to your robots.txt edits because they access your store through internal APIs. Adding rules for unknown user-agents does not affect them.

Can I edit robots.txt from the Shopify admin without touching theme code?

No, not directly. Shopify intentionally puts robots.txt editing behind the theme code editor. There is no UI panel for it. If you are not comfortable editing Liquid templates, there are apps in the Shopify App Store that provide a wrapper around robots.txt.liquid, but they ultimately do the same thing.

My theme does not have a robots.txt.liquid file. Is that a problem?

No. Shopify generates a default robots.txt on the fly when the template file does not exist. You only need to create the template when you want to customize the rules.

What About llms.txt on Shopify?

Shopify does not generate an llms.txt file automatically, and there is no Liquid template for it yet. If you want one, the workaround is to create it as a page (not a template) and set the URL handle to llms, then use a redirect to serve it at /llms.txt. It is not ideal — the served file will have HTML headers — and for most Shopify stores, it is fine to skip llms.txt entirely and rely on structured data instead.

See our llms.txt examples guide for templates if you do decide to host one on a subdomain or custom route.