PrestaShop SEO Checklist: Friendly URLs, Canonicals, Multilingual Shops, Speed, Feeds and Migrations

PrestaShop’s documentation notes that default deep URLs such as product.php?id_product=27 tell neither customers nor search engines anything. Most of its SEO work happens in Shop Parameters > Traffic > SEO and URLs, plus performance settings under Advanced Parameters.

This checklist covers those settings and the e-commerce basics that apply to every platform.

Friendly URLs and route schemas

• Enable Friendly URL only if your server supports URL rewriting (for example Apache mod_rewrite); PrestaShop warns that enabling it without support can make the shop unavailable.
• Set each product’s and category’s friendly URL in its SEO tab or main configuration.
• Adjust route schemas under Schema of URLs; the default product route {category:/}{id}-{rewrite}{-:ean13}.html produces URLs like /summer-dresses/7-printed-chiffon-dress.html.
• Changing schemas on a live shop changes URLs: plan 301 redirects first (URL structure).
• Consider disabling accented URLs if non-ASCII characters cause problems for your audience.

Duplicate content and canonicals

• Enable “Redirect to the canonical URL” with 301 Moved Permanently so parameter variants resolve to one URL.
• Since 1.7.6, combinations point to the default combination’s canonical by default; check this fits how you want variants indexed.
• PrestaShop notes canonical output depends on your theme implementing the link tag correctly; confirm in page source.
• Google treats duplicates as a canonicalization issue rather than a penalty, but cleaning them up still helps crawling (duplicate content, canonical tags).
• Control layered navigation (faceted) URLs on large catalogs (faceted navigation).

Multilingual shops

• Fill friendly URLs, titles and descriptions for every language; PrestaShop’s guide stresses this for local users and search engines.
• Each language should have its own URL.
• Check whether your theme or a module outputs hreflang, and validate it (hreflang, multilingual checks).
• Since 1.7.5.1 you can add product attributes to meta titles, useful for variant-heavy catalogs.

robots.txt

PrestaShop can generate a robots.txt that excludes non-public files and directories for all user agents. Clicking Generate robots.txt replaces the existing file, so add custom rules after generating, and recheck them after each regeneration (robots.txt mistakes).

Speed settings

• Template cache: keep “recompile templates if files have been updated” in production; only force compilation while editing themes.
• CCC (Combine, Compress and Cache): smart cache for CSS is generally safe; PrestaShop warns that combining JavaScript can be problematic, so test before leaving it on.
• Media servers can serve static files from separate domains.
• Then measure real-user Core Web Vitals (speed techniques).

Structured data and Shopping feeds

• Check what Product markup your theme outputs and that prices, availability and ratings match the page (Product schema).
• Use a reputable feed module or feed tool; confirm identifiers (GTIN, brand, MPN), variants and shipping.
• Troubleshoot disapprovals with Merchant Center diagnostics (product disapprovals, price mismatches).

Migrating to or from PrestaShop

1. Export every URL: products, categories, CMS pages, images.
2. Map each to its new equivalent and set server-side 301s.
3. Recreate titles, descriptions and friendly URLs in each language.
4. Follow the full migration checklist.

For help applying these settings or planning a migration, see our platform SEO service.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• PrestaShop 1.7 documentation: SEO and URLs
• PrestaShop 1.7 documentation: Performance
• Google Search Central: How to specify a canonical URL
• Google Search Central: Tell Google about localized versions of your page
• Google Search Central: Site moves with URL changes

Last reviewed October 19, 2026.