Every now and then while helping JSON-LD for SEO customers, I see some who have enabled their store passwords.
Enabling your store password for any extended period of time will wreck your SEO.
If you need to enable it for a couple of hours or maybe a day while you perform some maintenance, that'll have almost zero impact so it's nothing to worry about.
But once it's on for more than a day, you're risking Google removing pages from your store from the search results.
What happens when the password is enabled is that Shopify blocks all traffic and redirects it to the password page (at /password).
When Google detects this redirect, they assume that the original page no longer exists.
They won't remove the original page right away but they will schedule their next check-in to see what's going on.
If you keep the store password on for a month or longer, Google will assume that the redirects are permanent and they'll start removing your search results.
The end result is that you can lose all of your SEO work: search results, ranking, and Rich Results.
Once the password and redirect is off you can recover everything but you'll have to start over from step one. This can take months or years depending on how much damage was caused.
So use the store password if you have to but make sure to disable it as soon as possible.
Google likes to hand out search enhancements to those websites who help them and their searchers. That's why adding structured data to your Shopify store can be a valuable option.
With JSON-LD for SEO it's even easier. The app will automatically add the data needed for search enhancements like Rich Results and Rich Snippets on products, blog posts, landing pages, and more.
Already trusted by a few thousand Shopify stores since 2015, it's the safe and efficient choice for structured data.
Eric Davis