How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Shopify Store

A broken link is a link pointing to a page that no longer exists. When customers or search engines click it, they hit a 404 error page instead of content. This frustrates users and wastes SEO authority.

Broken links happen naturally: you delete old products, rename pages, change URLs. Most stores have some. The useful question is how many.

Why broken links matter (beyond user frustration)

1. Lost SEO authority: When an old page linked to an external site, that link equity is now wasted on a 404 page. Redirecting the old URL preserves that authority.
2. Lower crawl efficiency: Google's crawler has a limited crawl budget. Wasting time on broken links means Google crawls fewer of your actual product pages.
3. Poor user experience: Customers hit dead ends, get frustrated, and leave. This increases bounce rate and decreases conversions.
4. Ranking signals: Too many broken links on a site can signal poor maintenance to search engines, potentially affecting your overall domain authority.

Types of broken links (and where they come from)

External broken links: Links from your site pointing to a page that no longer exists on another website. (Hard to control, but still worth monitoring.)

Internal broken links: Links from one page on your site to another page on your site that no longer exists. (You can fix these directly.)

404 errors after URL changes: You rename a product URL (e.g., from /product-old-name to /product-new-name) but don't set up a redirect. Old links point to a 404. (This is the most common issue.)

How to find broken links on your Shopify store

Method 1: Use RankCart's free audit (easiest)

Run a free RankCart audit on a page of your store. The audit checks up to 20 internal links on the page you enter and flags any that return a 404 or 410. It is a quick check of your most important pages, not a full-site crawl; for that, use one of the tools in Method 3.

Method 2: Check Google Search Console

Google reports broken links it discovers:

1. Go to Google Search Console → Coverage
2. Look for pages with "Excluded" status and reason "Crawl anomaly" or "404 Not Found"
3. Note which pages are 404ing
4. Click a page to see the URL

Method 3: Use a broken link checker tool

Free tools like Screaming Frog, Broken Link Checker, or DeadLinkChecker scan your entire site and list every 404:

1. Download and run Screaming Frog
2. Enter your store's domain
3. Let it crawl (this may take 30 minutes to 2 hours for large stores)
4. Filter for 4xx responses to see all 404 errors
5. Export the list and prioritize fixes

Step-by-step: How to fix broken links on Shopify

Fix 1: Set up 301 redirects for deleted products

When you delete a product, the URL becomes a 404. Redirect it to a related product or collection page:

1. Go to Settings → Apps and integrations → Create an app (if you haven't already set up redirects)
2. Or use a redirects app like Shopify's native redirects feature: Go to Settings → Pages and turn on "Redirect to another page"
3. Click "Create" (or use a redirect app like Redirects app)
4. Enter the old URL path: Example: /products/old-product-name
5. Enter the new URL to redirect to: Direct to a similar product, or your Products collection page
6. Choose 301 redirect: This tells Google to permanently move the page, preserving SEO authority

Fix 2: Repair internal broken links in your content

If you've linked to a page that no longer exists within your blog posts or collection descriptions:

1. Find the page with the broken link (your audit report lists this)
2. Click the page to edit it
3. Find the broken link in the content
4. Replace it with a link to a current page (or remove the link if it's no longer relevant)

Fix 3: Use Shopify's built-in redirect feature

1. Go to Settings → Pages
2. Find the 404 page (usually listed as "404 Not Found")
3. Check if there's a redirect option: Some Shopify themes let you customize the 404 page and add suggested links
4. For product redirects: Go to Products → select the old product → turn on "Redirect" and set the target URL

Best practices for redirects

• Use 301 redirects, not 302: 301 = permanent, 302 = temporary. Use 301 for deleted products.
• Redirect to the most similar page: If you delete a blue shirt, redirect to another blue shirt or your shirts collection, not your homepage.
• Avoid redirect chains: If page A redirects to B, and B redirects to C, the chain wastes SEO authority. Redirect A directly to C.
• Keep redirects for at least 6 months: This gives Google time to discover the redirect and update its index. After 6 months, the redirect is usually safe to remove.
• Don't redirect to a generic page: Avoid redirecting everything to your homepage. It signals low-quality redirecting to Google.

Preventing future broken links

The best fix is prevention. Set up a system to catch broken links before they hurt your SEO:

1. Audit every 3 months: Run a free RankCart audit (or another tool) quarterly to catch new broken links early
2. Set up a redirect whenever you delete a product: Make it part of your process. Before removing a product, create a 301 redirect.
3. Test internal links when you publish: When you write a new blog post or collection description, test the links before publishing.
4. Monitor search console alerts: In Google Search Console, turn on notifications for crawl issues. Google will email you if 404 errors spike.

What to do with old redirects

After 6-12 months, old redirects become less useful. Google has updated its index, and the redirect is using server resources:

• After 6 months, check if the old URL still gets traffic (in Google Search Console or analytics)
• If it has zero traffic and zero clicks, remove the redirect
• If it still gets some clicks, keep the redirect active for another 6 months