# Flowpane for Shopify Flowpane for Shopify is an app that tells Flowpane what Shopify knows about your pages, so it can compare that with your sitemaps and the live site. Every request is signed with a key that never leaves your site, your content is never sent, and nothing changes without your approval. During the beta, connectors are switched on for testers platform by platform. Tell us your platform when you apply and we will prioritise it. Apply at https://flowpane.com/beta ## What it tells Flowpane What your CMS knows, without your content. Once connected, the connector reports three things by default. None of them includes a title, a line of text or an author. - **Content changes.** A signed, sequenced record of each item's ID, type, publication status and last-modified time. Gaps in the record are detected, and you can resynchronise. - **A page report.** Daily, and soon after changes: every public page with its type, publication state (published, scheduled, expired or restricted), public URL and explicit robots values, with site-wide settings such as the global robots setting, the canonical domain and sitemap hints. - **Robots changes.** A change to a robots setting is reported soon after it is made, so drift shows up before the next scheduled check. ## What Flowpane shows you Three views of every page, side by side. The Pages view puts what your CMS says beside the sitemaps that list each URL and what the public page actually does. Where they disagree, you get a finding. - **What your CMS says.** Publication state and robots values, from the page report. - **What your sitemaps list.** Which sitemaps list the URL, and which tool produces them. - **What the live page does.** What Flowpane's own public check receives, from the status code to the robots directives. Findings include: - The CMS allows indexing but the live page says noindex, or the reverse. - Published in the CMS, but the live address returns 404 or 410. - More than one robots setting applies to the same page. - A sitemap lists a URL that is noindex, blocked, redirecting or unavailable. Connector findings are review warnings, kept apart from the site score. Which tool produces each file: Flowpane shows which tool produces each governance file where it can tell. From public signatures, it identifies sitemaps made by Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, RSSeo!, OSMap, JSitemap and WordPress core. Every other file is checked just the same. ## What it can change Only with your approval. Changes are opt-in, a person approves each one, and each is made only where the platform allows. ### Page directives - Adds noindex or nofollow to the pages you choose. - Never removes anyone else's noindex, and never edits your content, settings or SEO tool settings. - A noindex on the homepage needs a second confirmation. - Disconnecting stops the directives. ### Flowpane's own sitemap - Served beside your existing sitemaps, at /flowpane-sitemap.xml where the platform allows, with up to 50,000 URLs. - You review a preview before each publication. - Other sitemaps are never changed, and nothing is submitted to Google. ### robots.txt - Applies a revision you saved in Flowpane's editor, where the platform lets robots.txt be changed. - A revision that was not based on the live file is refused. ## Proof and records Every change is checked in public. - **Checked after every change.** Flowpane checks the public result after each change, retrying when a cache is stale. It never purges your cache. - **Paused until proven.** If Flowpane cannot prove a change applied, further changes pause until it can. - **Revisions that stay put.** Revisions are immutable. Restoring an old one creates a new revision. - **A full trail.** Every action appears in Flowpane's activity and audit trail. ## Security and privacy Your key never leaves your site. The connector and Flowpane talk only through signed requests, and only the site's administrators can use it. - **A key made on your site.** An Ed25519 key is generated on your site and sealed with the site's own secret. It is never sent, shown or logged. - **Signed in both directions.** Every request is signed over its method, path, body digest, a single-use nonce and a short time window. Flowpane's replies are signed too. - **What is never sent.** Titles, body text, authors, comments, users, custom fields, orders and plugin configuration. - **Administrators only.** Only the site's administrators can use it. ## How it works on Shopify Flowpane for Shopify is an app. Connect it: 1. Start the connection in Flowpane. 2. Install the Flowpane for Shopify app in your Shopify admin. 3. Confirm the connection in Shopify. - **robots.txt.** Shopify generates robots.txt, and the theme's robots.txt.liquid template customises it. - **Sitemaps.** Shopify generates the sitemap at /sitemap.xml. - **Page-level robots.** Page-level robots tags come from the theme, or from an SEO app. ## Works alongside Keep the tools you already use. Flowpane does not replace them. It works alongside them, shows which tool produces each file where it can tell, and checks the live result either way. - **SEO apps:** Plug in SEO, SEO Manager, Smart SEO, JSON-LD for SEO - **Sitemap tools:** Shopify's own sitemap - **External services:** Pro Sitemaps (pro-sitemaps.com), XML-Sitemaps.com, Screaming Frog SEO Spider sitemap export, Cloudflare's managed robots.txt ## Questions ### Does Flowpane for Shopify work with my SEO app? Yes. It works alongside Plug in SEO, SEO Manager, Smart SEO and JSON-LD for SEO, and never changes their settings. Flowpane shows which tool produces each file where it can tell. ### Do I have to replace my SEO app? No. Flowpane works alongside your SEO app and shows which tool produces each file where it can tell. Keep using what you use today. ### Does it change my content? No. Flowpane for Shopify never edits your content, settings or SEO tool settings. Where Shopify allows, it can add noindex or nofollow to pages you choose, serve Flowpane's own sitemap beside yours and apply a robots.txt revision you saved in Flowpane, and a person approves each one. ### What happens if I remove it? Removing Flowpane for Shopify ends the connection, and any page directives it added stop. Your content is untouched, and Flowpane carries on checking the site from the outside, as it does for any site. ### Does it submit anything to Google? No. Neither Flowpane for Shopify nor Flowpane submits anything to Google, including Flowpane's own sitemap. Search Console access, if you connect it, is read-only. ### Can I use Flowpane without the app? Yes. Flowpane checks any site from the outside, over public HTTPS, with nothing installed. The app adds what only Shopify knows, such as publication states and robots settings, so Flowpane can compare them with your sitemaps and the live site. ## Related - [All integrations](https://flowpane.com/integrations.md) - [Flowpane for WordPress](https://flowpane.com/integrations/wordpress.md) - [Flowpane for Joomla](https://flowpane.com/integrations/joomla.md) - [How Flowpane fetches](https://flowpane.com/learn/how-flowpane-fetches.md)