Everything here describes what the app actually does. If RankNest behaves differently from this page, the page is wrong — tell us and we'll fix it.
Getting started
- Install from the Shopify App Store. There is no account to create: you sign in with Shopify.
- Open the app once. RankNest reads your store's primary domain from Shopify on that first load. Until it has, an audit has nothing to crawl and will say so.
- If your storefront is password protected, put that password in Settings. Without it every page we fetch is the password page, so the audit stops rather than reporting hundreds of false problems. Development stores are password protected by default.
- Audits → Run an audit now. The page updates itself while the run is in progress. On a small store it finishes in well under a minute.
- Connect Search Console in Settings when you are ready. This is what turns the list of issues into an ordered one — see below.
What the audit actually looks at
RankNest fetches your public storefront the same way a search engine does and reads the HTML it gets back. It does not use a private API, and it changes nothing: the app has no write permission at all.
It checks 25 things across seven areas — indexation, page metadata, structured data, content depth, internal linking, page speed, and how readable your catalogue is to AI shopping assistants. Which areas run depends on your plan.
Why there are five rows and not five thousand
Because a missing meta description on 400 product pages is one problem in one template, not 400 problems. Every finding is grouped by the template that emits it, and it tells you which template to edit. That grouping is the whole point of the app; a list of every affected URL is something you can already get for free elsewhere, and it is not actionable.
The revenue column
With Search Console connected, each issue is priced from the clicks and orders the affected pages already earn, and the worklist is ordered by that figure. It is an estimate of what is at stake on those pages today — not a prediction of what fixing the issue will earn.
Where we cannot reconcile a figure you will see a dash. That is deliberate: a zero would read as "this is worth nothing", which is a different claim from "we do not know".
Marking something fixed
On Pro and above, "I have fixed this" re-crawls the affected pages and decides for itself. If the problem is gone, the issue closes and the before-and-after is recorded against it. If it is still there, the issue is reopened and says so. Your word is not the source of truth — that is the point.
It asks for confirmation first, because the re-crawl spends part of your monthly page budget.
Plans and page limits
Each plan sets how many pages one audit may read, and a monthly budget across all audits. The dashboard shows how much of the month you have used before it runs out. Reaching the budget stops further audits until it resets on the 1st.
Troubleshooting
"We do not have your storefront address yet"#
RankNest reads your domain from Shopify when the app loads. Open the app once, then run the audit again. If it persists, reload the app so it re-reads your shop settings.
"Your storefront is password protected"#
Every page we fetch is the password page, so every check would misfire. Put the storefront password into Settings. You can find it in Shopify under Online Store → Preferences.
"This month's audit budget is spent"#
You have used the month's page allowance across all audits. It resets on the 1st. If you need more before then, move to a larger plan — the budget is a multiple of your plan's per-audit page cap.
"An audit is already running"#
Only one audit runs per store at a time. Wait for the one in progress; the Audits page updates itself while it runs.
The revenue column is all dashes#
Either Search Console is not connected, or it is connected but not matched to your domain, or your plan does not include revenue ranking. Settings will show which. A dash never means "zero revenue" — it means we will not print a number we cannot reconcile.
Search Console is connected but shows "Needs attention"#
The Google account you authorised has access to Search Console, but none of its verified properties matches your store's domain. Add and verify your store's domain in Search Console, then reconnect.
An audit says it covered only part of my store#
That is the app telling you the truth rather than presenting a partial result as a complete one. It happens when the audit hit your plan's page cap, when too many page requests failed, or when your product catalogue could not be read. The reason is shown with the run.
A finding I fixed came back#
The re-crawl found it still present on some of the affected pages, so it was reopened with the count. Open it to see how many pages still have the problem.
I want to stop hearing about an issue#
Ignore it, with a reason. It leaves your worklist until something about it changes. The reason is stored so that in six months you can see why.
Disconnecting Google
Settings → Disconnect. That revokes the grant with Google, not just our copy of the token. If Google cannot be reached at that moment we tell you, so you can remove RankNest from your Google account's third-party access yourself.
Uninstalling
Uninstalling deletes everything we hold for your store and revokes the Google grant. Reinstalling starts from empty.
Still stuck
Email support@appnest.studio with your store domain and, if it is about a particular issue, the name of the check. We reply to everything.