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Platforms: BigCommerce

Best SEO and GEO agency
for BigCommerce brands.

BigCommerce gives you real control over URLs, robots.txt and storefronts, and Feedonomics can carry your catalog to AI channels. What decides who gets recommended is the work around it: stable URLs, one complete Product schema, content crawlers can read and product pages that match the feed. Passionfruit does that part.

How BigCommerce stores get found now

  1. AI channels read your feed as well as your pages

    Feedonomics, owned by BigCommerce’s parent company, Commerce, sends catalogs to AI channels including ChatGPT, Google’s AI surfaces, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. A thin feed means a thin answer, and a feed richer than the page can leave Google and AI answers out of step.

  2. Answers arrive before the results

    A question like “best standing desk for a small home office” gets a written answer, with a few stores named, in ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews. Those stores have pages that state the answer outright, with the specs to back it up.

  3. Variants and reviews have to be in the HTML

    The main AI crawlers studied fetch pages without running JavaScript. On Stencil themes, choosing a variant updates price and stock in the browser and third-party review widgets load the same way, so those crawlers read the default variant and miss those reviews.

What BigCommerce does for search, and what it leaves to you

BigCommerce puts many search settings in your hands, and each one can help or hurt. These are the areas we check on every store: what BigCommerce covers, and what we add.

URLs

Out of the box

A URL Structure setting offers short, long, category-based and custom formats. Renaming a product can create a 301 for you.

What we add

A stable format, usually the short one, every old path 301-mapped, and no category in product URLs, so paths do not change when a product is recategorized.

Faceted search

Out of the box

Filters create new URLs as shoppers combine them, and facet URLs can be set to noindex.

What we add

Facet URLs kept out of the index, with curated filter landing pages for the combinations people actually search.

robots.txt

Out of the box

Editable in the admin, and per storefront on Multi-Storefront, though BigCommerce recommends leaving it unchanged.

What we add

An audit of any edits, a check of each storefront’s file, and explicit rules for the AI search crawlers you want in.

Redirects

Out of the box

A 301 redirect manager in the admin.

What we add

A redirect map for every URL format change, recategorized product and retired page, so links and authority carry over.

Structured data

Out of the box

Cornerstone-based Stencil themes output Product markup with brand, GTIN, offers and reviews, plus BreadcrumbList. Custom fields, shipping and returns are often left out.

What we add

One complete Product graph per page, with custom fields, shipping and returns merged in, and the duplicate graphs review apps add removed.

Multi-Storefront

Out of the box

Each storefront gets its own robots.txt, and storefronts that carry the same products can publish duplicate pages.

What we add

Per-storefront canonicals and hreflang, so each storefront ranks for its own audience instead of competing with the others.

Catalyst (headless)

Out of the box

Recent Catalyst versions server-render product and category pages and build canonical and hreflang on the server. Its sitemap leaves out routes BigCommerce does not manage, such as Makeswift pages.

What we add

Custom components checked for content fetched only in the browser, and every route that should rank added to the sitemap.

AI channels and crawlers

Out of the box

Feedonomics, a paid service from BigCommerce’s parent company, can send your catalog to ChatGPT, Google’s AI surfaces, Copilot and Perplexity. Crawler access depends on the live robots.txt and anything in front of the store.

What we add

Crawler access checked in the live robots.txt and server responses, Cloudflare included on headless builds, and on-page attributes matched to the feed.

See where your BigCommerce site stands.

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How AI engines read a BigCommerce store

BigCommerce stores reach AI answers through the page, the feed and what others say about them. We keep all five of these sources complete and consistent.

  1. Feedonomics catalogs

    Agentic catalog exports send optimized product data to ChatGPT, Google’s AI surfaces including Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and other channels. The feed and the page are read separately, so a rich feed can sit beside a thin page. We make the product page say everything the feed does.

  2. Your storefront HTML

    AI search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot fetch the server’s HTML and stop there. Variant prices, third-party review widgets and Catalyst components that fetch in the browser are missing for them. We move what matters into the server response.

  3. Google’s index

    AI Overviews and AI Mode are built on Google’s own crawl, so classic BigCommerce SEO still feeds them: stable URLs, facets out of the index, clean canonicals and fast pages.

  4. Merchant feeds

    Merchant Center and OpenAI’s product feed format each require core fields for every item, among them brand, price and availability. We keep both complete and matched to the page.

  5. Reviews and forums off your site

    Forum threads, review platforms and editorial roundups weigh heavily when an engine picks a store to recommend. We monitor those mentions and pitch for a place in the lists engines quote.

Search problems BigCommerce stores face

The issues we find on almost every BigCommerce store we audit, each with the fix.

  1. 01Faceted search filling the index

    Every filter combination is a new URL, and on a large catalog that adds up fast. We noindex facet URLs and build curated filter landing pages for the combinations people search.

  2. 02URLs that move when products do

    With long or category-based URL settings, recategorizing a product changes its path. We move to a stable format where it fits and 301-map every old path.

  3. 03Product schema with gaps or duplicates

    Cornerstone’s Product markup can leave out custom fields, shipping and returns, and review apps can add a second graph. We edit the theme’s schema into one complete Product graph.

  4. 04Headless pages that ship empty

    Catalyst server-renders product and category routes, but custom components that fetch in the browser send crawlers an empty shell. We server-render content and metadata and check the HTML as a crawler receives it.

  5. 05Duplicate content across storefronts

    Multi-Storefront lets several storefronts carry the same products, and without per-storefront canonicals and hreflang they compete for the same searches. We set those, and check each storefront’s robots.txt.

Find out which of these is costing you most.

Book a call and we will rank them by the revenue at stake on your own site.

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The apps you run, and where they stop

Most BigCommerce brands rely on some of these tools. Each solves a real problem, and each stops short of the full picture.

Feedonomics and feed tools

Their gap
They send your catalog to Google, marketplaces and AI channels, and enrichment can draft titles, descriptions and FAQs for it. A feed is still only as good as its attributes, and engines check it against the page.
Your opening
We write titles and attributes around how people ask for the product, and put the same facts on the product page.

Review apps

Their gap
They collect reviews well, but many render them in the browser and add their own Product markup. The result is a product page that looks review-free to AI crawlers and carries conflicting markup for Google.
Your opening
We render the reviews in the theme and fold the ratings into a single Product graph.

SEO apps

Their gap
They handle metadata and bulk edits inside the admin. Most have no view of AI answers: whether you are recommended, or who is.
Your opening
We track those answers prompt by prompt and work on the pages and sources behind them.

Catalyst and Makeswift

Their gap
Catalyst gives developers a Next.js storefront, and Makeswift lets marketers build pages visually. Routes BigCommerce does not manage, such as Makeswift pages, are left out of Catalyst’s sitemap, and custom components can add content only after the page loads.
Your opening
We check every route in the server response and keep the sitemap complete.

The BigCommerce program, part by part

Each part of the program is built for how BigCommerce works: its URL settings, faceted search, Stencil or Catalyst storefronts and the feeds Feedonomics sends to AI channels.

Content

Buying guides and comparisons on your store’s domain, linked to the categories they support. A guide that gets cited sends its authority, and its readers, straight to the category it recommends.

More on Content
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Why BigCommerce brands work with Passionfruit

BigCommerce gives you real control: URL formats, an editable robots.txt, several storefronts and a headless option in Catalyst. Each setting can also create duplicates or move a page, and the work that decides who gets recommended sits across the theme, the feed and the rest of the web.

Passionfruit Intelligence maps your store’s presence in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google’s AI answers, the competitors named instead and the sources behind each answer. Our team then does the work: theme and schema changes, category copy, feeds and the off-site mentions engines trust.

We work in your BigCommerce admin and theme with your team’s access and approval, or hand your developers ready-to-ship changes, and every change is measured against revenue, not just rankings.

What we measure

  • Revenue from organic search and AI referrals, by category and storefront
  • AI answer mentions for your priority products, tracked weekly
  • Indexed product and category pages versus facet URLs
  • Feed attributes matched on the product page
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Questions

Is BigCommerce good for SEO?

Yes, with the settings right. BigCommerce lets you choose a URL format, edit robots.txt and noindex facet URLs, and its themes output Product markup. What it leaves to you is stable URLs, one complete Product graph, content crawlers can read and product pages that match your feed.

Which BigCommerce URL structure is best for SEO?

Usually the short format. Long and category-based formats change a product’s path when it is recategorized, which means more redirects. We move to a stable format where it fits and 301-map every old path.

How do I stop BigCommerce faceted search URLs from being indexed?

Set facet URLs to noindex and build curated landing pages for the filter combinations people actually search. Those pages get their own copy and a place in the navigation, while the raw filters stay out of the index.

Does Feedonomics get my products recommended in ChatGPT?

It can send your catalog to ChatGPT, Google’s AI surfaces, Copilot and Perplexity. Whether your product gets recommended depends on the attributes in that feed, a product page that says the same thing and the reviews and mentions engines check. We work on all three.

Is BigCommerce Catalyst good for SEO?

Recent Catalyst versions server-render product and category pages and build canonical and hreflang on the server. Watch custom components that fetch in the browser, which send crawlers an empty shell, and routes BigCommerce does not manage, such as Makeswift pages, which its sitemap leaves out.

How do I handle SEO across multiple BigCommerce storefronts?

Give each storefront its own canonicals and hreflang, and check its robots.txt separately. Without them, storefronts that carry the same products compete with each other for the same searches.

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Get found and chosen in AI answers.

Book a call and we will show you where Google and AI answers leave you out today, and what we would ship first to get you in.