Seo category empty

Quick win

Found on 64% of audited stores.

Either populate the empty category with products, or add a noindex tag and remove it from your navigation so Google does not waste crawl budget on a page with no content.

What it is

A category (also called a collection) page that contains zero products is considered "thin content" by search engines. There is nothing of substance for Google to index — no product listings, no descriptions, no prices — just a shell of a page. This can happen when you create a category in advance, remove all products from it, or when seasonal inventory runs out and is never restocked.

Why it matters

Google actively discounts thin-content pages, and having too many of them across your site can drag down the quality signal for your entire domain, hurting rankings across all your pages — not just the empty one. Empty category pages also waste Google's crawl budget: every minute spent crawling a blank page is a minute not spent discovering your actual product and blog pages. From a user perspective, a shopper who lands on an empty category will immediately leave (high bounce rate) and lose trust in your store, directly costing you conversions and revenue. Removing or hiding these pages is one of the highest-return, lowest-effort technical SEO wins available to any store owner.

How to fix it

Audit the empty category: confirm it truly has zero products and is not simply a display/filter bug.
Decide your strategy: (A) populate it with relevant products now or soon, (B) noindex it temporarily while you restock, or (C) delete it permanently and redirect the URL to the nearest parent category.
If populating: add at least 5–10 relevant products and write a unique, keyword-rich category description (2–4 sentences) above or below the product grid.
If noindexing temporarily: add a robots meta tag with 'noindex, follow' to the category page's <head> and remove the link from your navigation menu so users and crawl budget are not wasted on it.
If deleting permanently: set up a 301 redirect from the empty category URL to its parent category or the nearest relevant category, and remove every internal link pointing to it.
After making your change, request re-crawl via Google Search Console ('URL Inspection > Request Indexing') and monitor the page's index status over the following 2–4 weeks.

Fix it on your platform

Pick your platform for the exact steps.

How to fix seo category empty on Shopify

Log in to your Shopify admin and go to Products → Collections.
Click the empty collection to open it.
Option A — Add products: Use the 'Add products' button or switch Conditions to 'Automated' and set rules that will pull in matching products automatically.
Option B — Noindex: In the collection editor, scroll to the 'Search engine listing preview' section, click 'Edit website SEO', and in the URL/handle area note the URL. Then go to Online Store → Themes → Edit code → open 'layout/theme.liquid'. Wrap a conditional noindex tag: {% if collection.handle == 'your-handle' %}<meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'>{% endif %} inside the <head> block. Save.
Option B (no-code alternative): Install the 'Yoast SEO' or 'SEOAnt' app from the Shopify App Store, find the collection, and toggle 'noindex' on within the app.
Option C — Delete & redirect: Click 'Delete collection' on the collection page, then go to Online Store → Navigation and remove the link. Go to Online Store → URL Redirects → Add URL redirect, enter the old collection path as the source and the parent category as the destination.
Remove the collection from any Navigation menus under Online Store → Navigation.

Full Shopify guide →Official Shopify docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Shopify Plus

Follow all Shopify steps above — Shopify Plus gives access to the same admin UI plus Launchpad and Scripts.
For enterprise stores with many empty collections, use the Bulk Editor or the Admin API to query collections with product_count == 0 and batch-apply noindex or deletion.

Full Shopify Plus guide →Official Shopify Plus docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on WooCommerce

In your WordPress admin, go to Products → Categories.
Identify the empty category (product count shown in the Count column).
Option A — Add products: Edit existing products and assign them to this category via Products → All Products → Edit → Product categories.
Option B — Noindex with Yoast SEO (most common): Go to Products → Categories, hover over the empty category, click 'Edit'. Scroll to the Yoast SEO meta box at the bottom, click the 'Advanced' tab, and set 'Allow search engines to show this category in search results?' to 'No'. Save.
Option B — Noindex with Rank Math: Same path, use the Rank Math meta box → Advanced → Robots Meta → check 'No Index'.
Option C — Delete & redirect: Click 'Delete' on the category. Then install the 'Redirection' plugin, go to Tools → Redirection, add a 301 redirect from the old category URL to the parent or nearest relevant category URL.
Remove the category from any custom navigation menus under Appearance → Menus.

Full WooCommerce guide →Official WooCommerce docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on BigCommerce

Go to Products → Product Categories in your BigCommerce control panel.
Locate the empty category (you can sort or filter by product count).
Option A — Add products: Open each relevant product under Products → View, edit it, and assign it to this category in the 'Categories' field.
Option B — Noindex: Open the category editor, scroll to the 'Search Engine Optimization' section, find 'Custom URL and SEO settings', and in the custom template or footer scripts section inject: <meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'>. Alternatively, use a script in Storefront → Script Manager targeting only that category page's URL.
Option B (easier): Use the 'SEO Manager' or 'Amasty SEO Suite' BigCommerce app to set noindex on individual categories via a dashboard toggle.
Option C — Delete & redirect: Delete the category via the category editor. Then go to Server Settings → 301 Redirects and add a redirect from the old URL to the parent category.
Ensure the category is removed from any navigation menu under Storefront → Navigation.

Full BigCommerce guide →Official BigCommerce docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Wix

Open the Wix Editor or Wix Dashboard.
Option A — Add products: Go to Store Products → Add New Product or reassign existing products to this category via each product's Categories field.
Option B — Noindex: In the Wix dashboard go to SEO → SEO Settings. Use the SEO patterns or open the specific category page via Pages & Menu → (your store page) → SEO. Under 'Advanced SEO', click 'Add tag' in the meta tags section and add: <meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'>. Save and republish.
Option C — Remove from nav: In the Editor, open Pages & Menu, find the category page, click the three-dot menu, and choose 'Hide from menu'. Then go to SEO Settings for that page and toggle 'noindex'.
Option C — Delete: Use the store's category management (Wix eCommerce dashboard → Categories) to delete the category, and set up a redirect under SEO → URL Redirects Manager.

Full Wix guide →Official Wix docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Wix eCommerce

Go to your Wix dashboard → Store Products → Categories.
Identify empty categories (zero products listed).
Option A — Populate: Drag products into the category or edit products individually to assign them.
Option B — Noindex: Navigate to SEO → SEO Settings → Custom meta tags for the category page, add <meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'>, and remove the category from your site's navigation.
Option C — Delete & redirect: Delete the category from the Categories panel, then go to SEO Tools → URL Redirects Manager and create a 301 redirect to the parent category.

Full Wix eCommerce guide →Official Wix eCommerce docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Squarespace

Open Pages in the Squarespace editor and locate your empty category page (usually a tagged or filtered Shop page).
Option A — Add products: Go to Commerce → Products and either create new products tagged with this category, or edit existing products and add the relevant tag/category.
Option B — Noindex: Click the page settings (gear icon), go to SEO → Page Settings, and under 'SEO Description / Advanced' look for 'Enable' toggle or use the Header Code Injection (available on Business plan and above): paste <meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'> in the 'Header' code injection field for that page. Save.
Option B (Site-wide code injection for a specific path): Go to Settings → Advanced → Code Injection → Header, and conditionally target the category URL if your template supports it.
Option C — Delete & redirect: Remove the category page. Go to Settings → Advanced → URL Mappings and add a 301 redirect: /old-category-url -> /parent-category-url 301.
Remove the category link from your navigation under Pages by dragging it to 'Not Linked' or deleting it.

Full Squarespace guide →Official Squarespace docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Squarespace Commerce

Follow all Squarespace steps above — Squarespace Commerce uses the same Pages and Commerce product management UI.
Access product categories via Commerce → Products and filter/tag management within each product's detail page.

Full Squarespace Commerce guide →Official Squarespace Commerce docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Webflow

Open your Webflow project in the Designer.
Option A — Add products: Go to the CMS panel → your product Collection, click 'New Item', and create or move products into this category.
Option B — Noindex: Open the Collection page template for the empty category. In the Page Settings panel (gear icon), scroll to 'SEO Settings' and check 'Exclude from search index (noindex)'. This applies to all items matching that template; for a single category, you may need a conditional visibility workaround or set it per Collection item via the CMS field 'noindex' toggle (Webflow supports a noindex field per CMS item).
Option B (per CMS item): In your Category collection, add a boolean field called 'No Index'. In the Collection page template, bind the noindex meta tag to this field using an Embed element: <meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'>. Toggle the field on for empty categories in the CMS editor.
Option C — Delete & redirect: Delete the CMS item for the empty category. Go to Project Settings → SEO → 301 Redirects and add a redirect from the old URL slug to the parent category slug.
Remove the empty category from any navigation Collection lists or static nav links in the Designer.

Full Webflow guide →Official Webflow docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Adobe Commerce (Magento)

Log in to the Adobe Commerce / Magento Admin Panel.
Go to Catalog → Categories and click the empty category in the tree.
Option A — Add products: Scroll to the 'Products in Category' tab at the bottom of the category editor. Search for and assign relevant products. Save.
Option B — Noindex: In the category editor, open the 'Search Engine Optimization' tab. Set 'Include in Menu' to 'No'. In the 'Meta Robots' field (if your theme exposes it) or via a third-party SEO extension (e.g., Mageworx SEO Suite), set the value to 'NOINDEX, FOLLOW'. Save and flush the Magento cache (System → Cache Management → Flush Magento Cache).
Option B (via XML layout): In your theme, create a layout override for catalog_category_view_id_{CATEGORY_ID}.xml and inject the noindex meta tag into the head block.
Option C — Delete & redirect: In the category editor, click 'Delete Category'. Then go to Marketing → SEO & Search → URL Rewrites, click 'Add URL Rewrite', set Type to 'Custom', enter the old category request path, the target path of the parent category, and set Redirect Type to 'Permanent (301)'. Save and flush cache.
Remove the category from any navigation menus by going to Content → Elements → Menus (if using a menu builder extension) or by checking 'Include in Menu: No' in the category settings.

Full Adobe Commerce (Magento) guide →Official Adobe Commerce (Magento) docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Magento Open Source

Follow the same steps as Adobe Commerce (Magento) above — the Catalog → Categories path, SEO tab, and URL Rewrites are identical in Magento Open Source.

Full Magento Open Source guide →Official Magento Open Source docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on PrestaShop

In your PrestaShop back office, go to Catalog → Categories.
Click 'Edit' on the empty category.
Option A — Add products: Go to Catalog → Products, edit each product, and in the 'Categories' tab assign it to this category.
Option B — Noindex: PrestaShop does not have a built-in per-category noindex toggle. Install the 'SEO Expert' or 'Prestashop SEO' module. Alternatively, edit the category.tpl file in your theme (themes/[your-theme]/templates/catalog/category.tpl) and add a conditional: {if $category.nb_products == 0}<meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'>{/if} inside the {block name='head_seo'} or equivalent block.
Option C — Delete & redirect: Delete the category in Catalog → Categories. Go to Shop Parameters → Traffic & SEO → URL Redirections and add a 301 redirect from the old category URL to the parent category URL.
Disable the category display in menus by toggling 'Displayed' to off in the category editor, or by removing it from the menu via Modules → Main Menu.

Full PrestaShop guide →Official PrestaShop docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on OpenCart

In the OpenCart admin, go to Catalog → Categories.
Edit the empty category.
Option A — Add products: Go to Catalog → Products, edit each product, and in the 'Links' tab assign it to this category.
Option B — Noindex: OpenCart has no built-in noindex field. Go to the category's edit page → SEO tab → this tab handles meta titles/descriptions but not robots. Edit your theme's catalog/view/theme/[your-theme]/template/product/category.tpl and add <meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow'> inside the <head> block when the product count is zero, or install the 'SEO Pack Pro' extension.
Option C — Delete & redirect: Delete the category. Go to System → Tools → URL Redirects if your version supports it, or install the '301 Redirect' extension and add a redirect from the old category URL to the parent.
Remove the category from navigation by editing Catalog → Categories and setting 'Status' to 'Disabled', or remove it from the top navigation module under Extensions → Modules.

Full OpenCart guide →Official OpenCart docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Headless / Custom (I build in code)

Query your category/collection data source for any category where product_count == 0 at build time (SSG) or request time (SSR/ISR).
Option A — Populate: Update content in your CMS or database to assign products.
Option B — Noindex: In your category page component/template, conditionally render <meta name='robots' content='noindex, follow' /> in the document <head> when the product array is empty. In Next.js use the Metadata API or next/head; in Nuxt use useHead(); in Astro set it in the frontmatter head slot.
Option C — Redirect: In your framework's routing layer (Next.js: getServerSideProps or next.config.js redirects; Nuxt: server middleware; SvelteKit: load function), return a 301 redirect to the parent category when the product array length is 0.
Remove empty categories from any navigation data source (CMS, JSON config, API) so they are not linked from any page.
After deployment, use Google Search Console URL Inspection to confirm the noindex tag is seen by Googlebot or that the 301 redirect resolves correctly.

Full Headless / Custom (I build in code) guide →Official Headless / Custom (I build in code) docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Next.js (Headless)

In your category page route (e.g. `app/categories/[slug]/page.tsx` or `pages/categories/[slug].tsx`), fetch the product list for the category at build/request time and check whether `products.length === 0`.
If using the App Router, export a `generateMetadata` function that returns `robots: { index: false, follow: false }` when the category is empty, and `robots: { index: true, follow: true }` when it has products.
If using the Pages Router, use `next/head` inside the page component to conditionally render `<meta name='robots' content='noindex,nofollow' />` when the product list is empty.
Remove empty category pages from your sitemap (e.g. `app/sitemap.ts` or a custom `pages/sitemap.xml.tsx`) by filtering out slugs whose product count is 0.
Remove empty category links from your navigation component (e.g. `components/Navigation.tsx`) by filtering the category list to only those with `productCount > 0` before rendering `<Link>` elements.
Optionally, redirect empty category URLs to the parent category or home page using Next.js `redirect()` (App Router) or `getServerSideProps` + `res.redirect` (Pages Router) to avoid soft 404s entirely.

Full Next.js (Headless) guide →Official Next.js (Headless) docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Elementor

In your WordPress admin, go to Appearance → Menus (or Elementor → Theme Builder if your navigation is built with Elementor). Locate the empty category link in your menu structure and either remove it entirely or unlink it so it is no longer crawlable from your navigation.
If you choose to noindex the empty category instead of removing it, install or open your SEO plugin (e.g. Yoast SEO or Rank Math). Navigate to the category's edit screen (Posts → Categories → Edit), scroll to the SEO plugin meta box, open the 'Advanced' tab, and set 'Allow search engines to show this page in results' (Yoast) or 'Robots Meta' (Rank Math) to 'No Index'.
If the empty category has a dedicated Elementor template (Theme Builder → Single/Archive), open that template in the Elementor editor. Add a visible notice or redirect logic using an Elementor widget (e.g. a Text widget saying 'No products found') as a temporary measure, OR delete the custom template so the category falls back to your theme's default — making it easier to manage noindex via the SEO plugin.
To populate the category instead: go to WooCommerce → Products, open each relevant product, scroll to 'Product Categories' in the right-hand panel, check the empty category, and click 'Update'. Repeat until the category has at least one published product.
After making your changes, open Elementor → Tools → Regenerate CSS & Data, then flush any page/server cache (e.g. via your caching plugin or hosting panel) so the updated category page or removed menu link is served immediately.
Verify the fix by visiting the category URL and inspecting the page source for a <meta name='robots' content='noindex'> tag (if noindexing), or confirm the URL returns a 404/redirect and no longer appears in your site's navigation.

Full Elementor guide →Official Elementor docs ↗

How to fix seo category empty on Remix

Identify the empty category route file in your Remix project (e.g. app/routes/collections/$category.tsx or app/routes/category/$handle.tsx) and locate the loader function that fetches products for that category.
In the loader, detect when the category returns zero products — for example: `if (products.length === 0) { return json({ products: [], empty: true }); }`.
In the same route file, update the exported `meta` function to conditionally inject a `noindex` robots tag when the category is empty: ```ts export const meta: MetaFunction = ({ data }) => { if (data?.empty) { return [{ name: 'robots', content: 'noindex, nofollow' }]; } return [{ title: data?.category?.title }]; }; ```
Remove empty category links from your navigation by checking the `empty` flag in any nav-building loader or component (e.g. in app/root.tsx or a shared Header component) — filter out categories whose product count is 0 before rendering `<Link>` elements.
If you prefer to populate rather than noindex, seed real products into the empty category via your CMS or commerce backend (e.g. Shopify, Medusa, Commerce.js) and verify the loader now returns at least one product before removing any noindex logic.
Deploy the changes, then submit the affected URLs for recrawl in Google Search Console (Inspect URL → Request Indexing) and confirm the `noindex` header or tag appears in the page source for any remaining empty categories.

Full Remix guide →Official Remix docs ↗

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Frequently asked questions

What is Seo category empty?

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