Broken Link Monitoring and Redirects

When a visitor opens a page on your store that doesn't exist, they see a 404 error page. Broken Link Monitoring lists these pages so you can send visitors somewhere useful with a redirect. A redirect automatically sends anyone who opens the old address to a page you choose.

Turn it on

1. Make sure the Ongoing SEO app embed is on in your theme. See Getting Started with Ongoing SEO.

2. Go to Apps > Ongoing SEO > Broken Links.

3. If the Status shows Disabled, click Enable monitoring.

Monitoring is on by default. If the app embed is off, you'll see the banner Enable app embed to monitor broken links.

What it catches

Each time a visitor lands on your store's 404 page, the app records the address. The Missing Pages tab shows:

• Path: the address that wasn't found.

• Visits: how many times visitors hit it.

• First Seen: when it was first recorded.

• Referrers: how many different sources linked visitors there.

The pages with the most visits are listed first.

Create a redirect

1. On the Missing Pages tab, click Fix next to a page.

2. Choose Redirect to Homepage to redirect it right away, or Redirect to custom URL... to pick a destination.

3. If you picked a custom URL, choose an option under Redirect to: Homepage, All Collections or Custom URL. For Custom URL, type the path, for example /products/example.

4. Click Create Redirect.

To fix several pages at once, tick their checkboxes and click Redirect selected to....

If a page doesn't need a redirect, click Fix > Dismiss (or Dismiss selected) to remove it from the list.

See and delete redirects

The Redirects tab lists your store's URL redirects with From Path, Redirects To and Created. To remove one, click Delete, then Delete redirect. To remove several, tick them and click Delete selected. After you delete a redirect, visitors to the old path will see a 404 error again.

Click Export CSV to download the redirects shown on the page.

Turn it off

Click Disable monitoring, then confirm with Disable monitoring. New broken links won't be recorded. Pages already on the list and redirects you created stay as they are.

Good to know

• The app records a broken link only when someone actually visits it. It doesn't crawl your store looking for broken links.

• Redirects are saved in Shopify, so they keep working even if you turn off monitoring.

• The Redirects tab shows all of your store's URL redirects, including ones you created outside the app. Deleting one here deletes it from your store.

• Export CSV exports the redirects on the current page of the list (up to 25). Go to the next page to export more.

• A page you dismiss won't come back to the list, even if visitors hit it again.

• For more on 404 errors, see What is a 404 Error & How Can I Fix It?