How to Edit Shopify URLs and Understand Their Limitations

Shopify URL structure follows a fixed pattern: every page type sits in its own folder, such as /products/, /collections/ or /pages/, followed by a handle you can edit. You control the handle and your domain, but not the folders, and URLs can’t be nested to mirror a category tree.

That fixed format works well for most stores, as long as you write clean handles, keep links pointing to the main version of each page and redirect old URLs when anything changes. Knowing exactly what Shopify creates, and where duplicates come from, helps you avoid broken links and wasted search traffic.

How Shopify URL Structure Works

Each kind of page in a Shopify store uses a set URL pattern. The handle at the end is generated from the title when you create the page, and it’s the only part of the path you can change.

Shopify also creates some URLs automatically, such as /collections/all for every product, /cart and /search. These are system pages, and you can’t rename or redirect paths like /products, /collections and /collections/all.

The structure is flat. A product always lives at /products/handle, no matter which collections it belongs to, and every collection sits directly under /collections/. Category hierarchy is shown through menus, breadcrumbs and links rather than through the URL itself.

What You Can and Can’t Change

Shopify is a hosted platform with a predefined structure, so there’s no equivalent to the custom permalink settings or server rewrite rules some other platforms offer. The table shows where your control starts and stops.

Use your custom domain as the primary domain rather than the default yourstore.myshopify.com address. It’s better for branding, and some features, such as international subfolders, require a custom domain.

The only way to get full control over URLs is a custom storefront built separately from Shopify’s themes, such as a headless setup with its own routing. That’s a development project rather than a setting, and most stores don’t need it to rank well.

How to Edit a Shopify URL Handle

Handles are generated from titles, so a product named “Canvas Tote Bag – Natural, Large” might get a long handle full of extra words. Editing it gives you a shorter, clearer URL.

1. Open the page. In your Shopify admin, open the product, collection or page you want to change.
2. Find the search engine listing. Scroll to the search engine listing section and click the edit icon.
3. Edit the URL handle. Change the handle field to the words you want after the folder.
4. Keep the redirect option selected. When you change the handle of a published page, Shopify offers to create a redirect from the old URL to the new one. Leave it on so existing links keep working.
5. Save. Visit the old URL afterward to confirm it redirects to the new one.

Write handles that work

A good handle describes the page in a few words. Use lowercase letters, separate words with hyphens rather than underscores or spaces, and drop filler words, special characters and details that may change, such as a season or year.

• Clear: /products/canvas-tote-bag
• Too long: /products/canvas-tote-bag-natural-large-new-for-summer-2026
• Unhelpful: /products/item-4471

Every handle in a section must be unique. If you create two products with the same title, Shopify adds a number to the second handle, such as canvas-tote-bag-1, so review handles after duplicating products or importing items with similar names.

Think twice before changing established URLs

A redirect keeps visitors and most search signals moving to the new page, but changing URLs that already rank well still carries some risk. Change handles on new pages freely, and on established pages only when the improvement is clear, such as a handle that no longer matches the product.

Handles also matter for product CSV imports, because Shopify matches existing products by URL handle when you overwrite them. If you change a handle in your CSV file, Shopify won’t find the existing product and will create a new one instead, so edit handles in the admin rather than through an overwrite import.

For a large catalog, it helps to review titles and handles in one place before deciding what to change. Bulkflow supports bulk export of product data for Shopify, WooCommerce and Wix, so you can audit your catalog in a spreadsheet and spot long, duplicated or outdated handles.

Where Duplicate URLs Come From

Shopify can show the same content at more than one URL. This isn’t usually a problem on its own, because Shopify tells search engines which version is the main one, but it’s worth knowing where duplicates appear so your own links stay consistent.

If your theme uses collection-based product links and you’d rather it didn’t, a developer can change the product card code so links use the /products/ URL instead. Many recent themes already link to /products/ by default.

The bigger risk is thin, near-identical pages from heavy tag use. A store with many tags can create a large number of tag-filtered collection URLs that show almost the same products, so use tags for organizing and filtering, and create real collections for the groups you want shoppers to find in search.

International URLs With Shopify Markets

If you sell in several countries or languages, Shopify Markets can give each market its own URLs. The usual folders and handles stay in place, with the market’s domain or subfolder added in front of them. You can choose from three formats:

Subfolders combine a language and a country code, such as /fr-ca or /en-eu, and Shopify recommends them for a first international setup. International domains and subfolders need the Basic plan or higher and a custom domain, since they can’t be used with a myshopify.com address.

Shopify adds hreflang tags automatically for each international domain or subfolder, which tells search engines which version suits which audience. If you later remove a market, set up redirects for its URLs so visitors don’t land on error pages.

Redirect URLs When Anything Changes

Any time a URL stops working, whether you renamed a handle, deleted a product or merged collections, redirect it to the most relevant live page. Without a redirect, visitors from search results, bookmarks and other sites land on a 404 page.

To add redirects manually, go to Content > Menus, click View URL redirects and then Create URL redirect. For many URLs at once, such as during a migration or restructure, import a CSV file of old and new URLs from the same page.

Redirects in Shopify follow a few rules worth knowing before a restructure. Most problems with redirects that don’t work come from one of these:

• Only broken URLs redirect. A redirect works only when the old URL no longer loads a page, so delete or hide the old page first.
• Some paths are off-limits. You can’t redirect fixed paths such as /products, /collections and /collections/all, or system paths such as /cart and /orders.
• Moved blog posts need a manual redirect. Moving a post to a different blog changes its URL without creating a redirect automatically.
• There’s a limit. Stores can have up to 100,000 redirects, or 20 million on Shopify Plus.

Link directly to the new URL in your menus and content as well. Redirects catch old links from outside your store, but internal links should point straight to the live page.

Conclusion

Shopify URL structure gives you a fixed, flat framework, with clean handles, a custom domain and international paths as the parts you control. Writing clear handles, keeping links pointed at the main version of each page and redirecting anything that changes keeps your URLs working for shoppers and search engines alike. We hope this guide helps you make the most of your Shopify URL structure. If you manage product data in bulk, you can explore Bulkflow.