The free CBD SEO audit
- PriceFree
- ReplyWithin 24 hours
- LoginsNone needed
Our free CBD SEO audit is a written first look at your site within 24 hours. It needs no logins, and it covers compliance risks, your link profile and the first fixes we'd make.
Technical SEO audits and fixes for CBD and hemp stores
CBD technical SEO that gets every product page crawled, indexed and fast
Age gates that hide your products from Google, lab reports it can't read, thousands of filter URLs and platform rules written for other industries. We run a full technical SEO audit of your store, then fix what we find.
Get a technical audit quote → Start with the free audit
Fixed-price audits · Report within 10 business days of access · Shopify and WooCommerce, other platforms on request
- Founded 2022
- 35 cannabinoid brands served
- Free audit reply within 24 hours
Example · Your brand · Product page
ExampleWhat a shopper sees
Are you 21 or older?
Yes, enterNo
What verified Googlebot sees
- Product
- Full-spectrum CBD oil, 1,000 mg
- Price
- $59.00 · In stock
- Lab report
- Batch 24-117 · PDF
- Product markup
- Valid
In short
- Who it's for
- CBD and hemp brands selling online in the US and the UK, on Shopify, WooCommerce or another platform.
- What you get
- A technical SEO audit of every template, a prioritised fix list, and the fixes themselves. We fix it on Shopify and WooCommerce, or brief your developer.
- Price
- Audits from $1,500, paid once. Included on our monthly plans.
The short answer
What is CBD technical SEO?
CBD technical SEO is the work that lets Google crawl, render and index every page of a CBD store, load it fast and read its product details. For CBD it also means age gates Google can get past, lab reports it can read, filters that don't flood the index, and product markup that stays clear of health claims.
What's different about a CBD store
- An age gate stands between Google and every page
- Lab reports (COAs) sit in PDFs, often scanned
- Filters by strength, spectrum and flavour multiply your URLs
- Google Shopping and free listings are closed to CBD
- Payment and platform changes force site moves
Free audit or technical audit?
The technical SEO audit
- ScopeWhole site
- ReportWithin 10 business days
- FixesUs or your developer
A technical SEO audit is a paid, full review. With Search Console and platform access we crawl the whole site, check the rendered HTML of every template, test your age gate as Googlebot and give you a prioritised fix list. Then we fix it, or brief your developer.
Age gates
Age gates: let Google in, keep under-21s out
Age gates are one of the first things Google's AI answers raise for CBD technical SEO searches. Google has written guidance on them, so we work from that.
What Google says
In its guidance on interstitials and dialogs, Google writes: "For content behind a mandatory age gate for adult users, we recommend allowing Googlebot to crawl your content without triggering the age gate. You can do this by verifying Googlebot requests and serving the content without age gate."
Google also says Googlebot doesn't click buttons or fill in forms, so a gate it can't pass is a dead end.
Why cookie-based gates fail
Googlebot doesn't keep cookies between pages, so it meets your age gate on every page it crawls (Google's JavaScript guidance). If the gate hides or holds back the page until an "over 21" cookie exists, Google may never see your product text, prices or lab reports.
How we test your gate
- We check verified Googlebot requests, using Google's verification method (reverse DNS or Google's published IP ranges).
- We inspect your key templates in Search Console's URL Inspection tool and read the rendered HTML and screenshot.
- We check that shoppers still see the gate on every entry page, including product pages reached straight from search.
Is serving Googlebot the page without the gate cloaking?
No, as long as Googlebot gets the same page shoppers see once they pass the gate. Google recommends it. Cloaking means showing Google different content, and we won't do that.
AI crawlers need the same access. We cover that on our CBD AI SEO page: AI crawler access.
What we check
What we check in a CBD technical SEO audit
Every audit covers these eight areas, on every page template your store uses. Each finding comes with the pages affected, how serious it is, the fix, and who should make it.
- 01
Crawling and indexing
Search Console's page indexing report, robots.txt, XML sitemaps and the rendered HTML of each template. We find pages Google can't reach, pages it has chosen not to index and pages that shouldn't be indexed at all, such as cart and account pages.
- 02
Filters, variants and duplicate URLs
CBD stores filter by strength, spectrum, flavour, size and format, and every combination can become a URL. Following Google's faceted navigation guidance, we choose which filtered pages deserve to be landing pages and block crawling of the rest. On Shopify we also check collection-path product URLs and variant URLs.
- 03
Core Web Vitals and speed
Since March 2024, Google's Core Web Vitals measure responsiveness with INP. Google's targets are LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds and CLS under 0.1 (Google's Core Web Vitals page). On CBD stores the usual causes are age-gate apps, review widgets, chat scripts and large hero images.
- 04
Product markup that's eligible and claim-safe
Product, Offer, Breadcrumb and Organization markup that matches what's on the page: name, price, currency, stock and brand. We keep health claims out of the markup and use the product type on your label, such as "CBD oil" or "hemp extract".
- 05
Lab reports (COAs) and PDFs
Google can index PDFs. We check that your COAs are text, not scanned images, live on your own domain, carry the batch number in the file name and are linked from the product page with a short HTML summary: batch, test date, lab, total THC and CBD per unit. For old batches we recommend one COA archive page.
- 06
Site architecture and internal links
How many clicks it takes to reach each product, orphan products no page links to, category depth, breadcrumbs and the related-product modules that pass links around your catalog.
- 07
Redirects, 404s and retired products
Redirect chains, broken internal links, retired products that return an empty page with a 200 status, and products that should redirect to a replacement or return a 410.
- 08
Templates: titles, descriptions and headings at scale
Missing or duplicate title tags and meta descriptions, heading structure in your templates and thin variant pages. We fix the template rules, so every new product gets them right.
This audit fixes templates. Need the copy on those pages rewritten? See CBD content writing. Have shops as well as a website? Store pages and your Google Business Profile are covered by CBD local SEO. Running a licensed dispensary? Menu and multi-location issues belong to dispensary SEO, a separate service.
Google and CBD
What Google will and won't show for CBD products
Most guides promise CBD stores "rich snippets" without saying what Google allows. This is what Google's own policy pages say.
| Google surface | Open to a CBD store? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Organic results | Yes | Your pages rank like any other store's, if Google can crawl and index them |
| Product details in organic results (price, stock) | Eligible, not guaranteed | Correct Product markup makes your pages eligible. Google decides whether to show them |
| Merchant listings (product panels) | Don't count on it | Google's merchant listing rules exclude widely prohibited or regulated goods |
| Shopping ads | No | Merchant Center lists CBD among products not allowed. Google Ads' narrow exception (topical hemp CBD with 0.3% THC or less, in California, Colorado and Puerto Rico, after certification) is paid advertising, and we don't run it |
| Free product listings | No | Merchant Center lists CBD among products not allowed in Shopping ads and free listings |
Correct Product markup makes your pages eligible for product details like price and stock in Google's results. Google decides whether to show them, and CBD can't appear in Google Shopping ads or free listings. So we keep your markup accurate and claim-safe: no health claims in any schema text, and we don't label CBD as a dietary supplement in markup, because the FDA says CBD can't be sold as one. We don't use medical schema types on CBD pages, because marking a product page as relating to a medical condition implies a health claim.
Platforms
Shopify or WooCommerce: what each lets you fix
Most CBD stores we audit run on one of these two. They break in different places.
| What you control | Shopify | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| robots.txt | Editable through a theme template (robots.txt.liquid) | Fully editable, or through your SEO plugin |
| URL structure | Fixed patterns: /products/, /collections/, /pages/ | Set by you in permalink settings |
| Product URLs | Products also load under each collection path, so canonicals matter | One product URL, plus category and tag archives |
| Variant URLs | Each variant can load as ?variant=, which needs a canonical | Variations usually sit on the parent product |
| Filter URLs | Storefront filters add parameters to collection URLs | Filter plugins add parameters or new paths |
| Script weight | Apps add scripts to every page | Plugins add scripts, styles and cart-fragment calls |
| Hosting and speed | Shopify hosts it; you control the theme and apps | You choose the host, caching and CDN |
| Redirects | Built-in URL redirects | A redirect plugin or server rules |
| Product markup | Usually in the theme, often duplicated by apps | Usually from the SEO plugin, sometimes duplicated by the theme |
Shopify Payments doesn't support CBD, so CBD stores on Shopify use third-party payment providers (Shopify's hemp payments page). We don't set up payments. We make sure a payment or platform change doesn't cost you rankings. On another platform? We audit other platforms on request.
Sample findings
What your audit report looks like
Sample data. Not a real client. Part of a findings table from a technical audit of a Shopify CBD store. Every finding has the pages affected, a severity, the fix and who makes it.
Sample findings · Your brand · Shopify store · 2,900 URLs
Sample data- 3 high
- 4 medium
- 1 low
| Issue | Pages affected | Severity | Fix | Who fixes it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age gate holds back product text until a cookie is set; Googlebot's rendered HTML shows only the gate | 186 product pages | High | Serve verified Googlebot the page without the gate; show the gate on top of loaded content | Us, in the age-gate app settings |
| Product markup repeats a health claim from old product copy | 12 products | High | Remove the claim from the markup and the page | Us, with your approval |
| Filter combinations (strength, spectrum, flavour) crawled and indexed | 1,240 URLs | High | Block filter parameters in robots.txt; keep 6 filtered pages as landing pages | Us |
| Variant URLs without a canonical to the main product | 310 URLs | Medium | Canonical to the main product URL | Us |
| Lab report PDFs are scanned images with no text | 64 PDFs | Medium | Text PDFs from the lab, batch number in the file name, HTML summary on the product page | You (from the lab), then us |
| INP poor on the product template: review widget and chat scripts | 1 template | Medium | Load the review widget after the page; load chat on click | Your developer, with our brief |
| Retired products return an empty page with a 200 status | 38 URLs | Medium | 301 to the closest replacement, or 410 | Us |
| Collection template repeats the same title tag | 57 pages | Low | Template rule: collection name, filter and brand | Us |
Get a quote
Get a fixed price for your technical SEO audit
Tell us about your store. Within 24 hours you'll get a written reply with:
- The audit band that fits your site, and its fixed price.
- The first things we'd check, from a look at your public pages.
- The access we'd need, and when your report would arrive.
- An honest view if the free audit or a monthly plan would suit you better.
No access or logins needed for a quote.
Migrations
Moving platform or payment provider without losing rankings
CBD stores move more often than most. A payment provider drops you, you open a separate hemp store, or you move from WooCommerce to Shopify. Every move changes URLs, and every changed URL can lose its rankings if it isn't handled.
- 01
A redirect map before anything moves
Every old URL mapped to its new one, one to one, with products, collections, COA PDFs and blog posts included. We keep URLs the same wherever the new platform allows.
- 02
A crawl of the new site before launch
We crawl the staging site for blocked pages, missing markup, broken links and an age gate Googlebot can't pass, and fix them before launch day.
- 03
Launch-day checks
Redirects tested in bulk, sitemaps submitted, robots.txt checked, and the old and new sites compared in Search Console. We follow Google's guidance on site moves.
- 04
Monitoring at 30, 60 and 90 days
Indexing, rankings, 404s and organic traffic, compared with the old site, until the new one has settled.
Your backlinks point at your old URLs. Redirects keep the links you've earned working for the new site. To build more, see CBD backlinks.
The hemp change
Getting your product URLs ready for the late-2026 hemp change
Section 781 of Public Law 119-37, scheduled to take effect in late 2026, measures hemp by total THC, including THCA, and caps finished hemp products at 0.4 mg of total THC and similar cannabinoids per container. Many brands will pull or reformulate products. Each one is a URL decision.
| What happens to the product | What we do with its URL |
|---|---|
| Reformulated, same name | Keep the URL. Update the page, the product markup and the COA |
| Renamed or relaunched | 301 redirect the old URL to the new product |
| Discontinued, with a close replacement | 301 redirect to the replacement |
| Discontinued, no replacement, the page has links or traffic | Keep the page as an information page that says it's discontinued and links to alternatives |
| Discontinued, no replacement, no links or traffic | Return a 410 so Google drops it |
This is SEO housekeeping, not legal advice. We aren't lawyers, so check which products you can still sell with your legal adviser, and we'll handle the URLs.
Shipping rules
Shipping restrictions without thin state pages
One shipping page, not fifty
Many CBD stores build a page for every state they ship to, or can't ship to. Those pages are near-copies of each other, and Google treats them as thin. One clear shipping-restrictions page, kept up to date and linked from checkout and the footer, does the job better.
Markup for where you do ship
Product markup can say where you ship through Google's shippingDestination property, with rates and delivery times. We add it for the places you actually ship, so the markup matches your checkout.
Our rules
What we won't do
We won't:
- Guarantee rich results or rankings.
- Show Google different content from what shoppers see.
- Remove or weaken your age gate.
- Build a Google Shopping feed for CBD products.
- Add health claims or medical schema types to your markup.
Google decides what it ranks and shows. Here's what we control:
- Whether Google can crawl, render and index your pages.
- How fast your templates load.
- Whether your markup is accurate and claim-safe.
- How your URLs, redirects and filters are set up.
- A fix list ranked by impact, with an owner for each fix.
Technical fixes make your pages eligible to rank. Content and links decide how high.
Process
How it works
Day 1
Access
Read-only access to Search Console and your analytics, and a staff account on your platform. We start the crawl as soon as access is in place.
First week
Crawl and rendering checks
A full crawl, rendered HTML for every template, the age-gate test as Googlebot, Core Web Vitals field data, product markup and COA checks.
Within 10 business days
Report and walkthrough
Your prioritised fix list, with every affected URL, and a 60-minute call to walk through it.
Next
Fixes
We fix it on Shopify and WooCommerce, or brief your developer. Implementation is quoted after the audit, from the fix list.
After the fixes
Monitoring
We recheck the fixed templates and watch indexing in Search Console. On a monthly plan this carries on every month.
Pricing
Technical SEO audit pricing
A fixed price by the size of your site, paid once. Every audit includes the full crawl, the report and the walkthrough call.
Up to 500 URLs
$1,500one-off
For single-brand stores with a small catalog.
- Full crawl and Search Console review
- Rendering and age-gate test as Googlebot
- Core Web Vitals on every template
- Product markup and COA checks
- Prioritised fix list
- 60-minute walkthrough
500 to 5,000 URLs
$3,000one-off
For larger catalogs with filters, variants and a blog.
- Everything in the 500-URL audit
- Filter and variant URL analysis
- Template-by-template title and heading rules
5,000+ URLs
From $5,000custom quote
For big catalogs, and for brands with several stores or domains.
- Everything in the 5,000-URL audit
- Every store or domain checked
- Server log analysis, if logs are available
- The audit fee is credited against the first month of a monthly plan signed within 30 days.
- On a monthly plan, the technical audit is included. It's the forensic audit and roadmap in our Starter plan.
- The 10% annual discount applies to monthly plans only, not to audits.
Prices in US dollars. UK stores are invoiced in pounds at the equivalent rate on the invoice date.
Audit + fixes
Implementation is quoted after the audit, from your fix list. We fix it on Shopify and WooCommerce, or brief your developer.
Ongoing technical work is part of our monthly plans, Starter at $2,500 and Growth at $5,800 a month. There's no separate technical retainer. See the monthly plans →
What is CBD technical SEO?
It's the work that lets Google crawl, render and index every page of a CBD store, load it fast and read its product details. For CBD stores that includes age gates Google can get past, lab reports it can read, filters that don't flood the index and product markup with no health claims.
How is a technical SEO audit different from your free CBD SEO audit?
The free CBD SEO audit is a written first look within 24 hours, with no access needed. The technical SEO audit is paid: a full crawl with Search Console access, every template checked, a prioritised fix list and fixes if you want them. Many stores start with the free one.
Does an age gate hurt SEO?
It can stop Google seeing the page. Googlebot doesn't keep cookies between pages, so it meets your age gate on every page it crawls. If the gate holds back the content until a cookie exists, Google may index only the gate. Set up the way Google recommends, a gate doesn't hurt.
Isn't letting Googlebot past the age gate cloaking?
No. Google recommends letting verified Googlebot crawl past a mandatory age gate. It isn't cloaking as long as Googlebot gets the same page shoppers see after the gate. Showing Google different content would be cloaking, and we don't do it.
Can CBD products show in Google Shopping or get rich results?
Not in Shopping. Google Merchant Center lists CBD among products not allowed in Shopping ads and free listings. Correct Product markup makes your pages eligible for product details like price and stock in Google's results, but Google decides whether to show them. Nobody can promise them.
Should our lab reports (COAs) be indexed?
Keep the current batch's COA crawlable, as a text PDF on your own domain, linked from the product page with a short HTML summary. For old batches we recommend one COA archive page, so buyers can still find them without dozens of PDFs competing with your product pages.
Is Shopify or WooCommerce better for CBD SEO?
Neither ranks better on its own. Shopify gives you less control over URLs and robots.txt but handles hosting for you. WooCommerce gives you full control, and with it the hosting, plugins and speed. We audit and fix both, and other platforms on request.
Can you sell CBD on Shopify?
Yes, for hemp-derived CBD, but not with Shopify Payments, which doesn't support CBD. Stores use a third-party payment provider. We don't set up payments. We handle the SEO side of a payment or platform change, so you keep your rankings.
Do you fix the issues or only report them?
Both, if you want. We fix it on Shopify and WooCommerce, or brief your developer. Implementation is quoted after the audit, once we both know what needs doing.
What access do you need?
Read-only access to Search Console and your analytics, and a staff or admin account on your platform. For age-gate and speed fixes we may need theme or app access later. We ask for read-only first.
How long until technical fixes show in Google?
It depends on the fix and how often Google crawls your site. Indexing fixes often show within weeks. Speed and markup changes take longer to show in Search Console reports. We can't promise rankings, and we track what changes.
What should we do with product pages when the hemp rules change?
Keep the URL for a reformulated product with the same name. Redirect renamed products and discontinued ones with a close replacement. If there's no replacement, keep the page if it has links or traffic, otherwise return a 410. Check which products you can still sell with your legal adviser.
Does technical SEO help with ChatGPT and AI Overviews?
Yes. A page that can't be crawled can't be ranked or cited. AI crawlers need their own access rules, which we cover under AI search visibility.
What does a technical SEO audit cost?
$1,500 for up to 500 URLs, $3,000 for 500 to 5,000 URLs, and from $5,000 for bigger sites or several stores. It's a one-off fee. Fixes are quoted after the audit. The fee is credited against the first month of a monthly plan signed within 30 days, and on a monthly plan the audit is included.
Do you work on Delta-8, THCA or kratom stores?
Yes. The technical work is the same: crawling, age gates, filters, speed and product markup. These products carry more legal and platform risk, so we check what you sell against current rules before we start.
Do you work with UK CBD stores?
Yes. UK stores have the same technical problems, and we audit and fix them the same way. Prices are in US dollars, and UK stores are invoiced in pounds.
Book a call
Book a 30-minute call about your store's technical SEO
We'll look at your store together, show you what's stopping Google crawling and indexing it, and which audit fits. Pick a time that suits you.
30-minute strategy call
With Khushboo Gairola, Founder
- What's stopping Google seeing your product pages
- Which fixes would matter most, and who should make them
- Which audit band fits, and what it costs
Prefer a written quote first? Get a technical audit quote
Rather email? sara@cbdseoxperts.com or khushboo@cbdseoxperts.com
