Shopify 301 redirects guide: bulk imports, migrations, SEO
Shopify 301 Redirects can be a bit of a headache. This guide will go through everything you need to know when doing 301 redirects for your Shopify migration. Every single migration project has old URLs lingering around in Google search results, in email campaigns from 3 years ago, in forgotten blog comments and backlinks that you never even knew existed. If you don’t fix the 301 redirects, all that traffic will cease to exist the moment you launch your new Shopify migration.
A 301 redirect is a way to inform browsers and search engines that a particular page has been moved permanently to another URL. Essentially, most of the ranking signal passed to Google from the old URL is forwarded to the new URL. It’s a much better idea to keep your links moving directly to the new content instead of serving up 404s to your (hopefully paying for) former customers – 404s are expensive.
Shopify Redirect Guide: When You Need A Redirect – explains when you actually need a redirect, Shopify’s built in URL Redirects, bulk import a CSV to Shopify URL Redirects without losing your mind, when redirects are needed for the 4 migration scenarios, and why redirect chains quietly destroy your site’s page speed. Our free Redirect Generator software will build the exact format and cleanup CSV file for you in seconds.
In this post
- When you need a 301
- Shopify URL Redirects feature
- Bulk import via CSV
- Common migration scenarios
- Redirect chains and how they hurt
- SEO impact and link equity
- FAQ
When you need a 301
When a URL changes, NOT JUST SOMETIMES BUT EVERYTIME A URL CHANGE OCCURS. Yes, when you change the name of a product handle from /products/blue-t-shirt to /products/mens/blue-t-shirt, Shopify will automatically generate a 302 redirect for you, but when you change a collection, change a blog post, or delete a page? That is up to you.
Situations that always need a manual 301:
- Deleting a product, collection, or page
- Renaming a collection handle
- Migrating from WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce or Wix to Shopify
- Consolidating duplicate products into combined listings
- Changing your blog URL structure
Shopify URL Redirects feature
Shopify offers a tool to manage URL Redirects inside their application. The tool can be found in the administration area under Online Store > Navigation > URL Redirects. You enter two values, the “from” path (relative path starting with a slash) and the “to” destination URL. Shopify only supports 301 permanent redirects but none of the other status codes. Therefore there is no support for 302 temporarily redirects, or any other status codes for that matter. Furthermore, there is no conditional logic support which means that you have to manually set up any custom redirects (for example: www.example.com to example.com). Also, there is no support for the query-string which means you cannot perform a redirect such as www.example.com/products/shoes?l=new_arrivals (Note: l=new_arrivals would need to be set as a static redirect value in the redirects section in the Shopify admin panel). Shopify is a hosted solution and as such, you have to keep it simple!
/Limits For most Shopify plans, you can create up to 100,000 URL redirects per store. Keep this limit in mind, especially if you are migrating from a large site and have a massive list of existing redirects that you intend to import into the new Shopify Store. The Redirect Generator app has built-in functionality to deduplicate (remove duplicates from) the list, as well as check and normalize the format for you. However, for very large lists, it still makes sense to first audit your list on a local machine before attempting to import.
Bulk import via CSV
Shopify accepts a CSV with two columns: “Redirect from” and “Redirect to”. Going to the URL Redirects area, clicking Import, and then dropping the file on the page is all that needs to be done. Note that the “from” path is relative. The “to” path can be a relative path within the same store or a full URL to a completely external site.
| Redirect from | Redirect to |
|---|---|
| /products/old-handle | /products/new-handle |
| /collections/spring-2023 | /collections/spring |
| /pages/about-us | /pages/about |
Keep the source CSV for redirects under version control, since sooner or later you’ll likely mess up a redirect and it’ll be nice to roll back to the previous set of redirects. You can use the Redirect Generator to produce the import file for MediaWiki, but it’s easier to just let it generate the file directly from your list of old and new URLs instead of having to manually open the file and replace things.
Common migration scenarios
WooCommerce to Shopify
WooCommerce uses /product/ (singular) while Shopify uses /products/ (plural) to access individual products. Every product page URL along with product category/collections URLs will need to be rewritten.
Consolidating separate products into combined listings
If you had one product for each color and combined them into one product with variants, you’ll have dozens of dead product URLs. Redirect those to your new master product. If you use Rubik Combined Listings to group products, you can keep the old products around and linked from the new product.
Blog URL restructure
Shopify blog posts live at /blogs/news/post-handle by default. If you rename the blog from “news” to “journal”, every post URL changes. Every one. A CSV import fixes them all in one shot.
Deleted products that still rank
Seasonal product categories and out of stock products get deleted. Instead of having old URLs return 404 errors with a generic message, a webmaster / SEO specialist can check Google Search Console for URLs which are returning a 404 with both clicks and impressions and add a server 301 redirect to the most relevant alternative category page. Note that you should NOT redirect everything to the homepage because Google treats mass homepage redirects as soft 404s.
Redirect chains and how they hurt
In natural link profiles, you usually don’t see chains where URL A links to URL B which links to URL C. Each hop introduces latency and degrades ranking signal somewhat. Google will usually follow about 5 hops, but ideally you want the answer to be “one hop”.
When adding a new redirect make sure that the target of the new redirect isn’t the “from” url of an existing redirect. If it is, change the first one first to point directly to the final URL. (Lame, but important work).
SEO impact and link equity
301s carry most of the ranking signal from the old URL to the new one. Yes, not 100% of the signal. But enough so that doing a 301 is always a better idea than letting old URL 404. There is no scenario in which a 404 would ever be better than a 301.
Make the redirect cleanup as part of an AEO audit and also clean up image filenames and you’ll recover all the lost traffic.
Generate your redirect file
Migrate before you start shifting all that traffic. It’s cheaper to explain a minor cost to your boss than a traffic accident. Check out the live demo store, watch the tutorial video, or read the getting started guide.
FAQ
Does Shopify do 301 redirects automatically?
Edited to better reflect Shopify’s functionality around product handles. Removed the general comment around edited content. If you change the handle of a product, Shopify automatically redirects from the old handle to the new one. However, for collections, pages, blogs, and deleted products, you’ll need to set up manual redirects.
How many redirects can Shopify store?
Shopify allows you to create up to 100,000 URL redirects per store and most plans include this feature. Enterprise stores are an exception and may be able to handle even more.
Do 301 redirects pass SEO value?
Google considers a 301 a permanent redirect and passes nearly 100% of link juice / ranking signals to the destination URL.
What is the Shopify redirect CSV format?
Two columns: Redirect from (relative path starting with slash) and Redirect to (relative path or full URL).
Should I redirect deleted products to the homepage?
Redirect to similar product or section Google treats mass homepage redirects as soft 404s and drops the ranking signal.
How do I find all URLs that need redirecting?
Create a sitemap from the old site prior to migration, extract pull URL’s from Google Search Console, and crawl the site with a tool like Screaming Frog. Then merge the three lists together and remove duplicates.
Can I remove old redirects eventually?
You can, but it’s a good idea to wait at least 12 to 18 months after the site has launched. Google will still check for your old URLs periodically, and external sites may link to them for years.
Related reading
Umid
Co-Founder at Craftshift