A Shopify Catalog audit checklist you can run by hand

First, the exclusions

These are pass-or-fail. A product failing any one of them is absent from Shopify Catalog, so fix these before touching anything else.

• Price above zero on every product you intend to sell
• At least one image per product
• Published to the Online Store, Hydrogen or Headless channel
• Status is not Unlisted
• seo.hidden is not set on products you want recommended
• Every product has a URL handle
• Your storefront is not password protected

Then, the matching fields

These decide whether you are chosen once you are visible. Shopify names them explicitly.

• Description covers materials, use cases and the attributes shoppers ask about
• Product type set, and consistent across the catalog
• Vendor set
• At least one collection per product
• Barcode on each variant, never invented
• Variant options named for what they are, not left as Title
• More than one image where you can

Finally, the store level

Assistants answer questions about how you operate by reading your published policies.

• Refund policy published
• Privacy policy published
• Terms of service published

Then keep doing it

Catalogs regress. A bulk import, a theme migration or an app that creates helper products will quietly reintroduce exclusions, and nothing in Shopify will tell you.