How to change a product URL in Shopify without breaking links

How a Shopify product URL works

Every product lives at /products/ followed by its handle, for example /products/blue-mug-350ml. The /products/ part is fixed. The handle is the only part you can change.

Shopify creates the handle from the product title when you add the product. Renaming the product later does not change the handle, so a product that has been renamed a few times can still carry its very first name in its URL. That is often the moment people want to change it.

Changing a handle is safe, as long as the old URL keeps working. Search results, ads, newsletters, social posts and bookmarks all still point to the old address, and without a redirect every one of them ends on Page not found.

Change the URL handle of a product

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products and click the product.
2. In the Search engine listing section, click the pencil icon.
3. In the URL handle field, enter the new handle. Use letters, numbers and dashes, and no spaces.
4. Once you change the handle, Shopify shows a Create a URL redirect option. Make sure it is selected.
5. Click Save.

Check that the old URL still works

1. Open the old URL in a private window. It should land on the product under its new URL.
2. In your Shopify admin, go to Content > Menus and click View URL redirects. Look for a redirect from the old path to the new one.
3. No redirect? Create one with Create URL redirect: the old path in Redirect from, the new path in Redirect to. Our guide to Shopify URL redirects has the full steps.

Update the links you control

The redirect catches every old link, but each one now takes a small detour. Go through the places you control and point the important links straight at the new URL:

• Your own store: links in menus, product descriptions, pages and blog posts. Click through the important ones to check where they go.
• Ads and emails: ads with a fixed final URL, newsletter templates and automated email flows.
• Other channels: links in your social profiles, marketplace listings and on partner sites you can edit.

Some links you can never update: QR codes on packaging, printed catalogues, old newsletters and links on other people's sites. That is why the redirect should stay. Keep it for as long as the old URL might still be used, which for printed material can be years.

Changing many product URLs at once

Renaming a whole range in one go needs a bit more care, because a missing redirect is easy to overlook among hundreds.

• Apps and integrations that change handles through the Shopify API only create a redirect when they ask Shopify for one. Check the app's settings, or its documentation, before you run it.
• Product CSV imports match each row to an existing product by its handle. If you edit handles in a spreadsheet, test with one product first: check that you still have one product, not two, and that the old URL redirects.
• Before and after: export your URL redirects first (Content > Menus > View URL redirects > Export) and again afterwards. Every changed handle should have a new redirect in the second file.

Missing a few? Put the old and new paths in a CSV and import them as redirects.

Changed it twice? Watch for chains and loops

Rename a product from A to B and later from B to C, and you can end up with a chain: A → B → C. It still works, but every extra hop slows the visitor down. Open the URL redirects list, find the oldest redirect and point it straight at the final URL.

Going back to a handle you used before needs a check too. Shopify only redirects URLs that are broken, so an old redirect from that handle sits there unused while the product page loads. If the URL breaks again later, that redirect springs back to life and can send visitors in a circle. Delete it when you take the old handle back.

Redirects age badly when nobody checks them. When we tested old URLs from 50 Shopify stores, 92 of the 264 redirects we found (35%) pointed to a page that was itself gone. Read what we found.

Collections and pages work the same way

• Collection: open the collection, click the edit icon in the Search engine listing section and change the URL handle. Select the option to create a redirect from the old URL to the new one, then click Save.
• Page: go to Online Store > Pages and click the page. In the Search engine listing preview section, click the pencil icon and change the URL handle. The Create a URL redirect option is already selected. Click Save.

The same rules apply: don't change handles too often, check the old URL afterwards and update the links you control.

How Klofy helps

Klofy checks your redirects for chains, loops and destinations that no longer exist, and its live 404 monitoring shows which old URLs visitors still hit. On Pro, Klofy also finds old URLs left behind by store changes. For each broken URL it suggests a destination from your own catalogue, with any known differences shown. You review every suggestion. Finding an issue never creates a redirect by itself.

The free plan includes manual redirect checks, a historical scan of up to 500 URLs and the last 10 live 404 visits. See the plans or read how Klofy works.