How do I get my BigCommerce store on Google?

Where the BigCommerce sitemap lives

BigCommerce serves its sitemap at /xmlsitemap.php, not /sitemap.xml — the single most common reason a BigCommerce sitemap submission fails.

Why BigCommerce products don't get indexed

• The sitemap path is /xmlsitemap.php. Submitting /sitemap.xml returns an error that looks like a BigCommerce fault and isn't.
• The mybigcommerce.com preview domain shouldn't be indexed — connect and canonicalise your custom domain.
• Faceted navigation generates enormous numbers of parameter URLs that soak up crawl budget.
• Out-of-stock products can drop out of the sitemap depending on settings, taking their rankings with them.
• Category descriptions are empty by default, which leaves category pages thin and hard to rank.

Step by step: getting your BigCommerce store into Google

1. Connect your custom domain and set it as primary.
2. Verify the domain in Google Search Console.
3. Submit https://yourdomain.com/xmlsitemap.php under Sitemaps.
4. Use Server Settings to disallow crawling of faceted parameter URLs.
5. Write real category descriptions and unique product copy for your top sellers.
6. Push new and updated product URLs through the Indexing API so price and stock changes reach Google quickly.

BigCommerce indexing controls at a glance

• Sitemap — https://yourdomain.com/xmlsitemap.php — BigCommerce serves its sitemap at /xmlsitemap.php, not /sitemap.xml — the single most common reason a BigCommerce sitemap submission fails.
• robots.txt — You can edit it. Editable in Server Settings, so per-crawler rules are possible.
• Rendering — Stencil themes render server-side; some widgets load client-side.
• Hiding a page — Per product and category, in the product's SEO section — there's a search-engine visibility control.
• Custom head code — Storefront → Script Manager, or the theme's templates, for JSON-LD.
• llms.txt — You can serve one through a redirect or a static page on your domain, and reference it from robots.txt.